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THE GOLDEN HYNDE 

AND OTHER POEMS 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



THE GOLDEN HYNDE 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 

ALFEED NOYES 

AUTHOR OF "POEMS," " THE FLOWER OF 
OLD JAPAN," ETC. 



Nefo fgtrrfe 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1908 

All rights reserved 






FEB 18 !903 



Copyright, 1908, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 

Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1908. 



Nnrtoootr i^ress 

J. S. Cashing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The 'Golden Hynde' 1 

At Dawn 5 

A Seventieth Birthday 11 

The Net of Vulcan 14 

Orpheus and Eurydice 16 

From the Shore 37 

The Return 42 

On a Railway Platform 44 

An Old Song Ended . " 46 

Love's Ghost 48 

Niobe 51 

The Last of the Titans 54 

The Ride of Phaethon 67 

The Empire-builders 74 

Nelson's Year — 1905 78 

In Time of War 86 

To England in 1907 103 

In Cloak of Grey 107 

A Ride for the Queen 109 

Song — ' When that I loved a maiden ' . . 113 

Eve's Apple 115 

v 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Recollections of a Song . ' . . . . 117 

E Tenebris 119 

Sonnet — ' Love, when the great hour knelled 

for thee and me' 122 

The Real Dante 124 

A Prayer 126 

Old Japan at Earl's Court .... 128 

Oxford Revisited 131 

Earth's Immortalities 136 

The Testimony of Art 138 

Song — 'Nymphs and naiads, come away' . 139 

Remembrance 141 

Unity 143 

Joy and Pain 145 

In the Cool of the Evening .... 147 
The Cottage of the Kindly Light . . .150 

The Three Ships 165 

Slumber-songs of the Madonna . . . 168 

The Call of the Spring 179 

The Lights of Home 183 

Credo 184 



THE GOLDEN HYNDE 

AND OTHER POEMS 



THE GOLDEN HYNDE 

i 

With the fruit of Aladdin's Garden clustering 
thick in her hold, 

With rubies a-wash in her scuppers and her 
bilge a-blaze with gold, 

A world in arms behind her to sever her heart 
from home, 

The Golden Hynde drove onward, over the glit- 
tering foam. 

ii 
If we go, as we came, by the Southward, we 

meet wi' the fleets of Spain! 
Tis a thousand to one against us; we'll turn 

to the West again; 
We have captured a China pilot, his charts and 

his golden keys; 



2 THE GOLDEN HTNBE 

We'll sail to the golden Gateway, over the 
golden seas. 

in 
What shall we see as we sail there? Clusters 

of coral and palm, 
Oceans of silken slumber, measureless leagues 

of calm, 
Islands of purple story, lit with the Westering 

gleam, 
Washed by the unknown whisper, dreaming 

the world-wide dream. 

IV 

There will be shores of sirens, with arms that 

beckon us near, 
As they stand knee-deep in the foam-flowers, 

with perilous breasts and hair; 
Sweet is the rest they proffer; but what shall 

we gain of these 



TEE GOLDEN ETNBE 3 

When we gaze on the golden Gateway that 
shines on the golden seas? 

v 
Wound in their white embraces, couched in the 

lustrous gloom, 

Gazing ever to seaward thro' the broad mag- 
nolia bloom, 

We should weary of all their kisses when, under 
the first white star, 

Over the limitless ocean, the golden Gates unbar. 

VI 

White arms will strive to hold us ; but we shall 

rise and go 
Down to the salt sea-beaches where the waves 

are whispering low: 
White arms will plead in anguish as the sails fill 

out to the breeze, 
And we turn to the golden Gateway that burns 

on the golden seas! 



4 THE GOLDEN HYNDE 

VII 

We shall put out from shore then, out to the 

Western skies, 
With the old despairing rapture and the sunset 

in our eyes! 
What shall we gain of our going, what of the 

fading gleam, 
What of the gathering darkness, what of the 

dying dream? 

VIII 

Only the unknown glory, only the hope deferred, 
Only the wondrous whisper, only the unknown 

Word, 
Voice of the God that gave us billow and beam 

and breeze, 
As we sail to the golden Gateway, over the 

golden seas. 



AT DAWN 

Hesper-Phosphor, far away, 
Shining, the first, the last white star, 

Hear'st thou the strange, the ghostly cry, 

That moan of an ancient agony 

From purple forest to golden sky 
Shivering over the breathless bay? 

It is not the wind that wakes with the day; 
For see, the gulls that wheel and call, 
Beyond the tumbling white-topped bar, 

Catching the sun-dawn on their wings, 
Like snow-flakes or like rose-leaves fall, 

Flutter and fall in airy rings; 
And drift, like lilies ruffling into blossom 
Upon some golden lake's unwrinkled bosom. 

Are not the forest's deep-lashed fringes wet 

With tears? Is not the voice of all regret 
5 



6 AT DAWN 

Breaking out of the dark earth's heart? 
She too, she too, has loved and lost ; and we — 
We that remember our lost Arcady, 
Have we not known, we too, 
The primal greenwood's arch of blue, 
The radiant clouds at sunrise curled 
Around the brows of the golden world; 
The marble temples, washed with dew, 
To which with rosy limbs aflame 
The violet-eyed Thalassian came, 
Came, pitiless, only to display 
How soon the youthful splendour dies away; 

Came only to depart 
Laughing across the grey-grown bitter sea; 
For each man's life is earth's epitome, 
And though the years bring more than aught 

they take, 
Yet might his heart and hers well break 
Remembering how one prayer must still be vain, 



AT DAWN 1 

How one fair hope is dead, 
One passion quenched, one glory fled 
With those first loves that never come again. 

How many years, how many generations, 

Have heard that sigh in the dawn, 
When the dark earth yearns to the unforgotten 
nations 

And the old loves withdrawn, 
Old loves, old lovers, wonderful and unnumbered 

As waves on the wine-dark sea. 
'Neath the tall white towers of Troy and the 
temples that slumbered 

In Thessaly? 

From the beautiful palaces, from the miracu- 
lous portals, 
The swift white feet are flown ! 

They were taintless of dust, the proud, the 
peerless Immortals 



8 AT DAWN 

As they sped to their loftier throne! 
Perchance they are there, earth dreams, on the 
shores of Hesper, 
Her rosy-bosomed Hours, 
Listening the wild fresh forest's enchanted 
whisper, 
Crowned with its new strange flowers; 
Listening the great new ocean's triumphant 
thunder 
On the stainless unknown shore, 
While that perilous queen of the world's delight 
and wonder 
Comes white from the foam once more. 

When the mists divide with the dawn o'er those 
glittering waters, 
Do they gaze over unoared seas — 

Naiad and nymph and the woodland's rose- 
crowned daughters 



AT DAWN 9 

And the Oceanides? 
Do they sing together, perchance, in that dia- 
mond splendour, 
That world of dawn and dew, 
With eyelids twitching to tears and with eyes 
grown tender 
The sweet old songs they knew, 
The songs of Greece? Ah, with harp-strings 
mute do they falter 
As the earth like a small star pales? 
When the heroes launch their ship by the smok- 
ing altar 
Does a memory lure their sails? 
Far, far away, do their hearts resume the story 

That never on earth was told, 
When all those urgent oars on the waste of glory 
Cast up its gold? 

Are not the forest fringes wet 

With tears? Is not the voice of all regret 



10 AT DAWN 

Breaking out of the dark earth's heart? 

She too, she too, has loved and lost ; and though 

She turned last night in disdain 

Away from the sunset-embers, 
From her soul she can never depart; 
She can never depart from her pain. 
Vainly she strives to forget; 
Beautiful in her woe, 

She awakes in the dawn and remembers. 



A SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY 

(IN HONOUR OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE) 

(B. April 5, 1837) 

i 
He needs no crown of ours, whose golden heart 
Poured out its wealth so freely in pure praise 
Of others: him the imperishable bays 
Crown, and on Sunium's height he sits apart: 
He hears immortal greetings this great morn, 
Fain would we bring, we also, all we may, 
Some wayside flower of transitory bloom, 
Frail tribute only born 
To greet the gladness of this April day — 
Then waste on Death's dark wind its faint 
perfume. 

ii 

Here, on this April day, the whole sweet Spring 

Speaks thro' his music only, or seems to speak ; 
ll 



12 A SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY 

And we that hear, with hearts uplift and weak, 
What can we more than claim him for our king ? 
Here, on this April day (and many a time 
Shall Spring return and find him singing still) 
He is one with the world's great heart 
beyond the years, 
One with the pulsing rhyme 
Of tides that work some heavenly rhythmic 
will 
And hold the secret of all human tears. 

in 
For he, the last of that immortal race 
Whose music like a robe of living light 
Re-clothed each new-born age and made it 
bright 
As with the glory of Love's transfiguring face, 
Reddened earth's roses, kindled the deep blue 
Of England's radiant ever-singing sea, 



A SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY 13 

Recalled the white Thalassian from the foam 
Woke the dim stars anew 
And triumphed in the triumph of Liberty, 
We claim him; but he hath not here his 
home. 

IV 

Not here ! Round him to-day the clouds divide. 
We know what faces thro' that rose-flushed air 
Now bend above him — Shelley's face is there, 
And Hugo's lit with more than kingly pride; 
Replenished there with splendour the blind eyes 
Of Milton bend from heaven to meet his own; 
Sappho is there crowned with those queen- 
lier flowers 
Whose graft outgrew our skies, 
His gift: Shakespeare leans earthward from 
his throne 
With hands outstretched. He needs no 
crown of ours. 



THE NET OF VULCAN 

i 
From peaks that clove the heavens asunder 

The hunch-back god with sooty claws 
Loomed o'er the night, a cloud of thunder, 

And hurled the net of mortal laws; 
It flew, and all the world grew dimmer; 

Its blackness blotted out the stars, 
Then fell across the rosy glimmer 

That told where Venus couched with Mars. 

ii 

And, when the steeds that draw the morning 
Spurned from their Orient hooves the spray, 

All vainly soared the lavrock, warning 
Those tangled lovers of the day: 

Still with those twin white waves in blossom 

14 



THE NET OF VULCAN 15 

Against the warrior's rock-broad breast, 
The netted light of the foam-born bosom 
Breathed like a sea at rest. 

in 
And light was all that followed after, 

Light the derision of the sky, 
Light the divine Olympian laughter 

Of kindlier gods in days gone by: 
Low to her lover whispered Venus, 

'The shameless net be praised for this — 
When night herself no more could screen us 

It snared us one more hour of bliss.' 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 

i 

Cloud upon cloud, the purple pinewoods clung 
to the rich Arcadian mountains, 
Holy-sweet as a column of incense, where 
Eurydice roamed and sung : 
All the hues of the gates of heaven flashed from 
The white enchanted fountains 
Where in the flowery glades of the forest the 
rivers that sing to Arcadia sprung. 

White as a shining marble Dryad, supple and 

sweet as a rose in blossom, 
Fair and fleet as a fawn that shakes the dew 

from the fern at break of day, 
Wreathed with the clouds of her dusky hair that 

kissed and clung to her sun-bright bosom, 

16 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 17 

Down to the valley she came, and the sound 
of her feet was the bursting of flowers in 
May. 

Down to the valley she came, for far and far be- 
low in the dreaming meadows 
Pleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his 
love by her golden name; 
So she arose from her home in the hills, and down 
through the blossoms that danced with 
their shadows, 
Out of the blue of the dreaming distance, 
down to the heart of her lover she came. 

Red were the lips that hovered above her lips in 

the flowery haze of the June-day, 

Red as a rose through the perfumed mist of 

passion that reeled before her eyes ; 

Strong the smooth young sunburnt arms that 
c 



18 ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 

folded her heart to his heart in the noon- 
day, 
Strong and supple with throbbing sunshine 
under the blinding southern skies. 

Ah, the kisses, the little murmurs, mad with pain 
for their phantom fleetness, 
Mad with pain for the passing of love that 
lives, they dreamed — as we dream — for 
an hour! 
Ah, the sudden tempest of passion, mad with 
pain for its oversweetness. 
As petal by petal and pang by pang their love 
broke out into perfect flower. 

Ah, the wonder as once he wakened, out of a 
dream of remembered blisses, 
Couched in the meadows of dreaming blossom 
to feel, like the touch of a flower on his 
eyes, 



ORPHEUS AND EUBTDICE 19 

Cool and fresh with the fragrant dews of dawn 
the touch of her light swift kisses, 
Shed from the shadowy rose of her face be- 
tween his face and the warm blue skies. 

ii 
Lost in his new desire 
He dreamed away the hours; 

His lyre 
Lay buried in the flowers : 

To whom the King of Heaven, 
Apollo, lord of light 

Had given 
Such beauty, love, and might: 

Might, if he would, to slay 
All evil dreams and pierce 

The grey 
Veil of the Universe; 



20 ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 

With love that holds in one 
Sacred and ancient bond 

The sun 
And all the vast beyond; 

And beauty to enthrall 
The soul of man to heaven : 

Yea, all 
Such gifts was Orpheus given. 

Yet in his dream's desire 
He drowsed away the hours : 

His lyre 
Lay buried in the flowers. 

Then in his wrath arose 
Apollo, lord of light, 

That shows 
The wrong deed from the right; 



ORPHEUS AND EUBYDICE 21 

And by what radiant laws 
O'erruling human needs 

The cause 
To consequence proceeds; 

How balanced is the sway 
He gives each mortal doom; 

How day 
Demands the atoning gloom : 

How all good things await 
The soul that pays the price 

To fate 
By equal sacrifice ; 

And how on him that sleeps 
For less than labour's sake 

There creeps, 
Uncharmed, the Pythian snake. 



22 OBPHEUS AND EUBTDICE 

III 

Lulled by the wash of the feathery grasses, a sea 
with many a sun-swept billow, 
Heart to heart in the heart of the summer, 
lover by lover asleep they lay, 
Hearing only the whirring cicala that chirruped 
awhile at their poppied pillow 
Faint and sweet as the murmur of men that 
laboured in villages far away. 

Was not the menace indeed more silent? Ah, 
what care for labour and sorrow? 
Gods in the meadows of moly and amaranth 
surely might envy their deep sweet bed 
Here where the butterflies troubled the lilies of 
peace, and took no thought for the mor- 
row, 
And golden-girdled bees made feast as over 
the lotos the soft sun spread. 



ORPHEUS AND EUBYDICE 23 

Nearer, nearer the menace glided, out of the 
gorgeous gloom around them, 
Out of the poppy-haunted shadows deep in 
the heart of the purple brake ; 
Till through the hush and the heat as they lay, 
and their own sweet listless dreams en- 
wound them, — 
Mailed and mottled with hues of the grape- 
bloom suddenly, quietly, glided the snake. 

Subtle as jealousy, supple as falsehood, diamond- 
headed and cruel as pleasure, 
Coil by coil he lengthened and glided, straight 
to the fragrant curve of her throat : 
There in the print of the last of the kisses that 
still glowed red from the sweet long pres- 
sure, 
Fierce as famine and swift as lightning over 
the glittering lyre he smote. 



24 ORPHEUS AND EUBYDICE 

IV 

And over the cold white body of love and delight 
Orpheus arose in the terrible storm of his 
grief, 
With quivering up-clutched hands, deadly and 
white, 
And his whole soul wavered and shook like a 
wind-swept leaf: 

As a leaf that beats on a mountain, his spirit in 
vain 
Assaulted his doom and beat on the Gates of 
Death : 
Then prone with his arms o'er the lyre he sobbed 
out his pain, 
And the tense chords faintly gave voice to the 
pulse of his breath. 

And he heard it and rose, once again, with the 
lyre in his hand, 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 25 

And smote out the cry that his white-lipped 
sorrow denied : 
And the grief's mad ecstasy swept o'er the sum- 
mer-sweet land, 

And gathered the tears of all Time in the rush 
of its tide. 

There was never a love forsaken or faith for- 
sworn, 
There was never a cry for the living or moan 
for the slain, 
But was voiced in that great consummation of 
song; ay, and borne 
To storm on the Gates of the land whence none 
cometh again. 

Transcending the barriers of earth, comprehend- 
ing them all, 
He followed the soul of his loss with the night 
in his eyes; 



26 ORPHEUS AND EUBYDICE 

And the portals lay bare to him there; and he 
heard the faint call 
Of his love o'er the rabble that wails by the 
river of sighs. 

Yea, there in the mountains before him he knew 
it of old, 
That portal enormous of gloom, he had seen it 
in dreams, 
When the secrets of Time and of Fate through 
his harmonies rolled; 
And behind it he heard the dead moan by 
their desolate streams. 

And he passed through the Gates with the light 

and the cloud of his song, 
Dry-shod over Lethe he passed to the chasms 

of Hell; 
And the hosts of the dead made mock at him, 

crying, how long 



ORPHEUS AND EURYBICE 27 

Have we dwelt in the darkness, oh fool, and 
shall evermore dwell? 

Did our lovers not love us? the grey skulls 
hissed in his face; 
Were our lips not red ? Were these cavernous 
eyes not bright ? 
Yet us, whom the soft flesh clothed with such 
roseate grace, 
Our lovers would loathe if we ever returned 
to their sight ! 

Oh then, through the soul of the Singer, a pity 
so vast 
Mixed with his anguish that, smiting anew 
on his lyre, 
He caught up the sorrows of hell in his utterance 
at last, 
Comprehending the need of them all in his 
own great desire. 



28 ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 

V 

And they that were dead, in his radiant music, 
heard the moaning of doves in the olden 
Golden-girdled purple pinewood, heard the 
moan of the roaming sea ; 
Heard the chant of the soft-winged songsters, 
nesting now in the fragrant golden 
Olden haunted blossoming bowers of lovers 
that wandered in Arcady; 

Saw the soft blue veils of shadow floating over 
the billowy grasses 
Under the crisp white curling clouds that 
sailed and trailed through the melting 
blue; 
Heard once more the quarrel of lovers above 
them pass, as a lark-song passes, 
Light and bright, till it vanished away in 
an eyebright heaven of silvery dew. 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 29 

White as a dream of Aphrodite, supple and sweet 
as a rose in blossom, 
Fair and fleet as a fawn that shakes the dew 
from the fern at break of day; 
Wreathed with the clouds of her dusky hair, that 
kissed and clung to her sun-bright bosom, 
On through the deserts of hell she came, and 
the brown air bloomed with the light of 
May. 

On through the deserts of hell she came; for 
over the fierce and frozen meadows 
Pleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his 
love by her golden name ; 
So she arose from her grave in the darkness, 
and up through the wailing fires and 
shadows, 
On by chasm and cliff and cavern, out of the 
horrors of death she came. 



30 ORPHEUS AND EUBYDICE 

Then had she followed him, then had he won her, 
striking a chord that should echo for ever, 
Had he been steadfast only a little, nor 
paused in the great transcendent song; 
But ere they had won to the glory of day, he 
came to the brink of the flaming river 
And ceased, to look on his love a moment, a 
little moment, and over long. 

VI 

O'er Phlegethon he stood : 
Below him roared and flamed 

The flood 
For utmost anguish named. 

And lo, across the night, 
The shining form he knew 

With light 
Swift footsteps upward drew. 



OBPHEUS AND EURYDICE 31 

Up through the desolate lands 
She stole, a ghostly star, 

With hands 
Outstretched to him afar. 

With arms outstretched, she came 
In yearning majesty, 

The same 
Royal Eurydice. 

Up through the ghastly dead 
She came, with shining eyes 

And red 
Sweet lips of child-surprise. 

Up through the wizened crowds 
She stole, as steals the moon 

Through clouds 
Of flowery mist in June. 

He gazed : he ceased to smite 
The golden-chorded lyre : 



32 ORPHEUS AND EURTDICE 

Delight 
Consumed his heart with fire. 

Though in that deadly land 
His task was but half-done, 

His hand 
Drooped, and the fight half won. 

He saw the breasts that glowed, 
The fragrant clouds of hair ; 

They flowed 
Around him like a snare. 

O'er Phlegethon he stood, 
For utmost anguish named : 

The flood 
Below him roared and flamed 

Out of his hand the lyre 
Suddenly slipped and fell: 

The fire 
Acclaimed it into hell. 



OBPEEUS AND EUBYDICE 33 

The night grew dark again : 
There came a bitter cry 

Of pain, 
Oh, Love, once more I die ! 

And lo, the earth-dawn broke, 
And like a wraith she fled: 

He woke 
Alone: his love was dead. 

He woke on earth : the day 
Shone coldly : at his side 

There lay 
The body of his bride. 

VII 

Only now when the purple vintage bubbles and 
winks in the autumn glory, 
Only now when the great white oxen drag the 
weight of the harvest home, 

D 



34 ORPHEUS AND EUBTDICE 

Sunburnt labourers, under the star of the sun- 
set, sing as an old-world story 
How two pale and thwarted lovers ever 
through Arcady still must roam. 

Faint as the silvery mists of morning over the 
peaks that the noonday parches, 
On through the haunts of the gloaming musk- 
rose, down to the rivers that glisten be- 
low, 

Ever they wander from meadow to pinewood, 
under the whispering woodbine arches, 
Faint as the mist of the dews of the dusk 
when violets dream and the moon-winds 
blow. 

Though the golden lute of Orpheus gathered the 
splendours of earth and heaven, 
All the golden greenwood notes and all the 
chimes of the changing sea, 



ORPHEUS AND EURTDICE 35 

Old men over the fires of winter murmur again 
that he was not given 
The steadfast heart divine to rule that infinite 
freedom of harmony. 

Therefore he failed, say they ; but we, that have 
no wisdom, can only remember 
How through the purple perfumed pinewoods 
white Eurydice roamed and sung: 
How through the whispering gold of the wheat, 
where the poppy burned like a crimson 
ember, 
Down to the valley in beauty she came, and 
under her coming the flowers up-sprung. 

Down to the valley she came, for far and far 
below in the dreaming meadows 
Pleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his 
love by her golden name; 



36 ORPHEUS AND EUBYDICE 

So she arose from her home in the hills, and 
down through the blossoms that danced 
with their shadows 
Out of the blue of the dreaming distance, 
down to the heart of her lover she came. 



FROM THE SHORE 

i 
Love, so strangely lost and found, 

Love, beyond these Gates of Death, 
Love, immortally re-crowned, 

Love, who swayest this mortal breath, 
Sweetlier to thy lover's ear 

Steals the tale that ne'er was told: 
Bright-eyes, ah, thine arms are near, 

Nearer now than e'er of old. * 

ii 
When on earth thy hands were mine, 

Mine to hold for evermore, 
Oft we watched the sunset shine 

Lonelier from this wave-beat shore; 

Pent in prison-cells of clay 
37 



I FROM THE SHORE 

Time had power on thee and me, 
Thou and heaven are one to-day- 
One with earth and sky and sea. 

in 
Indivisible and one 

Beauty hath unlocked the gate, 
Oped the portals of the sun, 

Burst the bars of Time and Fate: 
Violets in the dawn of Spring 

Hold the secret of thine eyes; 
Lilies bare their breasts and fling 

Scents of thee from Paradise. 

IV 

Brooklets have thy talk by rote, 
Thy farewells array the West; 

Fur that clasped thee round the throat 
Leaps — a squirrel — to its nest : 

Backward from a sparkling eye, 



FROM THE SHORE 39 

Half-forgotten jests return 
Where the rabbit lollops by 
Hurry-scurry through the fern. 

v 

Roses where I lonely pass, 

Brush my brow and breathe thy kiss; 
Zephyrs whispering through the grass 

Lure me on from bliss to bliss; 
Here thy robe is rustling close, 

There thy fluttering lace is blown; 
All the tide of beauty flows 

Tributary to thine own. 

VI 

Birds that sleek their shining throats 

Capture every curve from thee, 
All their golden warbled notes — 

Fragments of thy melody — 
Crowding, clustering, one by one, 



40 FROM THE SHORE 

Build it upward, spray by spray, 
Till the lavrock in the sun 

Pours thy rapture down the day. 

VII 

Silver birch and purple pine, 

Crumpled fern and crimson rose 
Flash to feel their beauty thine, 

Glasp and fold thee, warm and close ; 
Every beat and gleam of wings 

Holds thee in its bosom furled, 
All that chatters, laughs and sings 

Darts thy sparkle round the world. 

VIII 

Love, so strangely lost and found, 
Love, beyond these Gates of Death, 

Love, immortally re-crowned, 

Love, who sway est this mortal breath, 



FROM THE SHORE 41 

Sweetlier to thy lover's ear 

Steals the tale that ne'er was told : 

Bright-eyes, ah, thine arms are near, 
Nearer now than e'er of old. 



THE RETURN 

i 
O hedges white with laughing may, 

O meadows where we met, 
This heart of mine must break to-day 

Unless ye, too, forget. 

ii 

Breathe not so sweet, breathe not so sweet, 

But swiftly let me pass 
Across the fields that felt her feet 

In the old time that was ! 

hi 
A year ago, but one brief year, 

happy flowering land, 
We wandered here and whispered there 

And hand was warm in hand. 

42 



THE RETURN 43 

IV 

O crisp white clouds beyond the hill, 

lavrock in the skies, 
Why do ye all remember still 

Her bright uplifted eyes? 

v 
Red heather on the windy moor, 

Wild thyme beside the way, 
White jasmine by the cottage door, 

Harden your hearts to-day. 

VI 

Smile not so kind, smile not so kind, 

Thou happy, haunted place, 
Or thou wilt strike these poor eyes blind 

With her remembered face. 



ON A RAILWAY PLATFORM 

A drizzle of drifting rain 

And a blurred white lamp o'er head, 
That shines as my love will shine again, 

In the world of the dead. 

Round me the wet black night, 
And, afar in the limitless gloom, 

Crimson and green, two blossoms of light, 
Two stars of doom. 

But the night of death is a-flare 

With a torch of back-blown fire 
And the coal-black deeps of the quivering air 

Rend for my soul's desire. 

Leap, heart, for the pulse and the roar 
And the lights of the streaming train 

44 



ON A BAIL WAT PLATFOBM 45 

That leaps with the heart of thy love once more 
Out of the mist and the rain ; 

For the thousand panes of light 

And the faces pale with mist 
Streaming out of the desolate night 

In ruby and amethyst ; 

Out of the desolate years 

The thundering pageant flows; 
But I see no more than a window of tears 

Which her face has turned to a rose. 



AN OLD SONG ENDED 

How should I your true love know 

From another one ? — 
By his cockle-hat and staff 

And his sandal shoon. — 

Wherefore hath he roamed so far, 
Lady, from your hand ? — 

Love's a pilgrim, and he comes 
Out of Holy Land. — 

Nay; but he is dead, lady, 
He is dead and gone : — 

Seek his grave and lay your face 
Down upon the stone. — 

Shall I find him if he sleep 
In a nameless grave 

46 



AN OLD SONG ENDED 47 

Where over many and many an one 
The tall wet grasses wave? — 

Breathe my name whereas you go. 

If you hear a sound 
Struggling like a stifled cry 

Underneath the ground, 

Whisper but a word to him, 

Tell him my despair: 
If he riseth from the dead, 

Then my love is there. 



LOVE'S GHOST 

i 
Thy house is dark and still : I stand once more 

Beside the marble door. 
It opens as of old! Thy pale, pale face 

Peers thro' the narrow space. 
Thy hands are mine, thy hands are mine to hold, 

Just as of old. 

ii 
'Hush ! hush ! or God will hear us ! Ah, speak 

low 

As Love spake long ago.' 

1 Sweet, sweet, are these thine arms, thy breast, 

thy hair 

Assuaging my despair, 

Assuaging the long thirst, quenching the tears 

Of all these years? 

48 



love's ghost 49 

III 
'Thy house is deep and still: God cannot hear; 

Sweet, have no fear! 
Are not thy cold lips crushed against my kiss? 

Love gives us this, 
Not God' ; but 'Ah/ she moans, 'God hears us ! 
Speak, 

Speak low, hide cheek on cheek.' 

IV 

0, then what eager whisperings, hoarded long, 

Too sweet for any song, 
What treasured news to tell, what hopes, what 
fears, 

Gleaned from the barren years, 
What raptures wrung from out the heart of pain, 

What wild farewells again. 

v 

Whose pity is this? Ah, quick, one kiss! 

Once more 

E 



50 love's ghost 

Closes the marble door ! 
I grope here in the darkness all alone! 

Across the cold white stone, 
Over thy tomb, a sudden starlight gleams: 

Death gave me this — in dreams. 



NIOBE 

i 
How like the sky she bends above her child, 
One with the great horizon of her pain! 
No sob from our low seas where woe runs wild, 

No weeping cloud, no momentary rain, 
Can mar the heaven-high visage of her grief, 
That frozen anguish, proud, majestic, dumb ! 
She stoops in pity above the labouring earth, 
Knowing how fond, how brief 
Is all its hope, past, present and to come, 
She stoops in pity, and yearns to assuage 
its dearth. 

ii 

Through that fair face the whole dark universe 
Speaks, as a thorn-tree speaks thro' one white 
flower; 

51 



52 NIOBE 

And all those wrenched Promethean souls that 
curse 
The gods, but cannot die before their hour, 
Find utterance in her beauty. That fair head 
Bows over all earth's graves. It was her cry 
Men heard in Rama when the twisted ways 
With children's blood ran red ! 
Her silence utters all the sea would sigh; 
And, in her face, the whole earth's anguish 
prays. 

in 
It is the pity, the pity of human love 
That strains her face, upturned to meet the 
doom, 
And her deep bosom, like a snow-white dove 

Frozen upon its nest, ne'er to resume 
Its happy breathing o'er the golden brace 
Whose fostering was her death. Ay, death 
alone 



NIOBE 53 

Can break the anguished horror of that 
spell! 
The sorrow on her face 
Is sealed; the living flesh is turned to stone: 
She knows all, all that Life and Time can 
tell. 

IV 

Ah, yet, her woman's love, so vast, so tender; 

Her woman's body, hurt by every dart; 
Braving the thunder, still, still hide the slender 
Soft frightened child beneath her mighty 
heart ! 
She is all one mute immortal cry, one brief 
Infinite pang of such victorious pain 
That she transcends the heavens and bows 
them down! 
The majesty of grief 
Is hers, and her dominion must remain 
Eternal. God nor man usurps that crown. 



THE LAST OF THE TITANS 

Over what seemed a gulf of glimmering sea, 

Huger than hugest Himalay arose 

Atlas, on weary shoulders heaving dark 

The burden of the heavens, the heavy broad 

Empurpled floors o' the roseate golden realm 

Unseen, where gods like living light in light 

Flowed and forgot the sorrows of the world. 

And his drooped head was bowed into the gloom, 

Bowed like a mountain, crushing on his breast 

A clotted beard of many pinewoods. Dark, 

Immeasurably dark his body's bulk 

Sank through the gulfs of Space; but pale as 

death 

His face gleamed over Africa, his face, 

A mask of living marble, bending down 

Eyes like deep wells of soft compassionate gloom. 
54 



THE LAST OF THE TITANS 55 

His cheeks were furrowed and writhen like 

rain-washed crags 
With fierce ravines of long and age-long tears 
Whereon the pale procession of the stars 
That round him moved in mockery sometimes cast 
A dreary light of anguish; but sometimes 
The white clouds glimmering crept to comfort 

him, 
And to be comforted, by shutting out 
The keen oppression of those glittering ranks 
And dread eternities. They crept like sheep 
Round some Titanic shepherd. In his breast 
They nestled; but whene'er his mighty hands 
In love would draw them closer, they escaped, 
Eluded the fond clasp, 
And, ever drawing nigh him all night long, 
Wandered away for ever as they came. 
Beneath him, like a tawny panther-skin 
The great Sahara slept: beyond it lay, 



56 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 

Parcelled and plotted out like tiny fields, 
The princedoms and the kingdoms of this earth, 
Mountains like frozen wrinkles on a sea, 
And seas like rain-pools in a rutted road 
Dwindling beneath his loneliness. Above 
The chariots of ten thousand thousand suns 
Conspired to make him lonelier and rolled 
Their flaming wheels remote, so that they seemed, 
E'en Alioth and Fomalhaut, no more 
Than dust of diamonds in the abysmal gloom. 
So from a huger loneliness he gazed 
Over the world where, faint as morning mists 
Drifting thro' shadowy battles on the hills, 
Drifting thro' many a pageant touched with red, 
Cities of men and nations passed away. 

But once, from out a crimson-glooming dawn, 
A light appeared as of a distant star 
Flying towards him, growing as it came; 



THE LAST OF THE TITANS 57 

Till now it seemed a naked youth up-borne 
On silver dove- winged sandals, like a god. 
Then, then as moans the thunder through the 

night, 
The heart of Atlas moaned — ' Why art thou 

come 
To look upon my sorrow? Nay, I know, 
Perseus, thou son of the everlasting gods, 
I know thee who thou art ! Why comest thou 

thus 
To mock me with the sight of that high hope 
Which Atlas never knew? Why comest thou 

thus 
In youth and beauty through the crimson dawn ?' 
And Perseus answered gently as a man 
Speaking to one in pain: 'I did not come 
To mock thee, lord: I come to seek and pluck 
The heart from out the land without a name, 
The land without any order, where the light 



58 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 

Is even as darkness. I would seek and slay 
Medusa — her whose foul enchantments draw 
Man's heart into the abominable pit 
Strangled and' . . .then that other — 'Many 

a man, 
Yea, many a hero have I seen go by 
The glory of whose face was like a god's 
Upon that quest; but I have never seen 
The face of one returning. Knowest thou not 
So terrible is the tempest of her beauty 
That if thine eyes but look upon her face 
Thy flesh and soul shall stiffen into stone. 
Her breasts are girt about with triple brass 
Against all mortal steel.' And Perseus — 'Yea, 
I know; but she — the brightest queen of 

heaven — 
Athena, gave me mine immortal sword, 
The sword of knowledge that can shear through 

brass 



THE LAST OF THE TITANS 59 

And triple steel as lightning cleaves the night. 

Athena gave me mine immortal shield, 

The shield of truth : and, mirrored in that gleam, 

The face of even Medusa hath no power 

To hurt me. I will look not on her face 

Save in the shield of truth : I shall not smite her 

Save with the sword of knowledge, bathed in 

heaven. 
I pray thee show me now that bitter road, 
My death-road as thou sayest; for I will go 
And triumph and return.' And Atlas said 
'Yea; if I show thee, Perseus, wilt thou give 
One grace if thou return, one gift of grace 
To me, world-wearied: I desire to rest. 
I am weary of bearing this exceeding weight 
Of gloom eternal, weary of searching heaven 
With prayers for pity, weary of knowledge, 

weary 
Of watching little men a little hour 



60 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 

Beneath the pondering of prodigious heavens 
Contend like ants for little mole-hill realms 
And glow-worm glories, crowns contemptible; 
But thou can'st give me peace, if thou return. 
Nay, Perseus, I will tell thee when thou comest ; 
But swear as thou dost love thy fatherland 
Thou'lt not deny me this if thou return.' 
And Perseus swore that oath with steadfast eyes, 
And Atlas pointed out the baleful road 
Across the shapeless land without a name. 

White as a snow-flake on the weird black wings 
Of many a wind fulfilled with hideous dreams, 
Misshapen horrors of the ultimate gloom, 
He flew, till as they gaped with threatening jaws 
Of flame around his path he donned the helm 
Wrung from the realms of Pluto, the dark helm 
Wrought in the lands of death, which whoso 
wears 



THE LAST OF THE TITANS 61 

Is bodiless and invisible as the soul 

That hath gone over Lethe. Him no more 

Can death affright nor mortal doom affray. 

League after league he sped till from the depths, 
Up through the darkness came a great soft sound 
Of breathing, like the breathing of the sea; 
And, shuddering, he upheld the polished shield 
And gazed on it as on some magic moon 
Wherein he saw the glimmering world below 
Mirrored; beheld what none hath ever seen 
And lived, since the beginning of the world. 
'0, horrible/ he moaned, '0, beautiful, 
Beautiful hell'; for in the shield he saw 
Upon what seemed a plain of steaming filth 
A Titan woman, lying supine and white; 
White as a fallen column of some huge 
Temple of Ombos, hugest City of earth, 
Her body a field of lilies and her breasts 



62 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 

Two snowy hillocks tipt with crimson dawn; 
Her flank a marble buttress beautiful 
Couched in the foul abyss; her regal face 
Calm with the leonine languor of the Sphinx. 
On either side, close huddled to her flank 
And in the steam through which she glimmered 

pale 
A dark shape, indistinguishable bulk 
Of horror, couched with laps and folds of skin 
Like those that wrap Behemoth ; and sometimes, 
Like the fierce flashing of a wrecker's fire, 
There came a glint of brazen claws and wings. 
All round them like a forest swept the deep 
Empurpled masses of her tangled hair. 
Anon with slow and sleepy crimson lips, 
Bright as with blood of heroes, her face turned 
Smiling to greet each horror with a kiss; 
And, as she turned, her beauty's palace heaved 
One rosy marble buttress from the filth 



THE LAST OF THE TITANS 63 

Luxuriously a little, the other sank 
And wallowed deeper. Suddenly her eyes 
Opened in childlike innocence. The dark 
Mass of her hair shook round her like a sea. 
Its purple clouds all clotted and congealed ! 
And lo, the primal serpents of the slime 
Huger than Python, hissing, upward curled 
And floated round her, coil on heavy coil, 
Beautiful in their horror as they cast 
Shadows like grape-bloom o'er her breasts' white 

snow 
And swayed their bloated throats : and then a 

voice 
From distances beyond the abode of gods 
Cried, This is She, the Abominable, the Queen 
Of dissolute chaos, knowing not evil or good, 
Queen of all dark adulteries, Mother of shame, 
Mother of falsehood, Mother of treachery, 
Mother of jealousy, Mother of blood and tears, 



64 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 

Queen of the ultimate darkness. At that voice 
Young Perseus gripped the bright immortal 

sword 
Which grave grey-eyed Athena gave him, gazed 
Steadfastly on the shield and floated down 
Quietly as a star-beam into hell. 
Then, with one prayer to the everlasting gods, 
Across the roseate hollow of her throat 
He smote ! The immortal blade like light thro' 

darkness 
Flashed, and the blood rolled hissing o'er the 

filth; 
And wheresoe'er it curled a serpent rose 
Hissing a-gape; then with one hideous clap 
Of thunder those two monstrous bulks arose, 
Mountainous, like two foul prodigious swine 
From out their wallowing beds i' the clinging 

mire ; 
And from what seemed their eyes a ruddy light 



THE LAST OF THE TITANS 65 

Of vengeance flashed, as of wild crimson torches 
Far-sunken in a thick and savage wood, 
Yet imminent; but Perseus, with one hand 
Clutching the tangled gloom of that dire head 
Soared upward and the silver sandals bore 
The hero and his burden far away. 
And though with heavy clang of brazen wings 
The Gorgons followed, soon they dropped 

behind 
And loomed no larger than two carrion flies 
Against the red horizon; and at last 
Decayed from sight. And onward Perseus came 
Triumphantly, a light upon his face 
As of a god returning, till he saw 
The mighty shoulders of the world-worn king 
Atlas, above what seemed a glimmering sea. 
And up to the grim worn face, furrowed with 

tears 
He sped, according to his vow; and Atlas 

F 



66 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 

Moaned like a distant thunder, 'Art thou come, 
Perseus, thou son of the everlasting gods? 
Lift up the head and let me look upon it; 
For I desire to rest.' And Perseus raised 
The cold head of Medusa, which no man 
Had seen and lived; and Atlas looked 
With weary hungering eyes upon her face. 
And lo, a sleep of stone, an iron rest 
And everlasting quiet sealed his eyes. 
His cheeks were furrowed and writhen rain- 
washed crags, 
And his drooped head was bowed into the gloom, 
A granite mountain, crushing on its breast 
A clotted beard of many pinewoods. Still 
Round him the clouds like wandering flocks of 

sheep 
Around some mighty shepherd creeping close 
Nestled against his breast ; and all was peace. 



THE RIDE OF PHAETHON 

i 
Forth, from the portals, flow the four immortal 
steeds 
Tossing the splendour of their manes, 
While the dazzled Phaethon reels o'er the flash- 
ing golden wheels 
Grasping the fourfold reins. 

ii 
Ah, beneath the burning hooves how the dark- 
ness cowers down 
As the great steeds mount and soar; 
How the twilight springs away from the wheels 
like spray 
And the night like a battle-broken host is 

driven before. 

67 



68 THE BIDE OF PHAETHON 

III 

And swifter now, ah, swift, as the eight great 
shoulders lift 
And leap up the rolling sky, 
And the steeds in whitest glory ramp and trample 
on the night 
And the quivering haunches thrust, they 
mount and fly. 

IV 

Ah, the beauty of their scorn ! How the blood- 
red nostrils burn, 
Breathing out the dawn and the day; 
How the long cloud ranks foam in fury from 
their flanks 
And the heavens for their hooves make way. 

v 

And higher now and higher, thro' a sea of cloudy 
fire 
The chariot sways and swings, 



THE BIDE OF PHAETHON 69 

And the heart of Phaethon leaps, as up the 
radiant steeps 
They surge, and drunk with triumph, he lifts 
his head and sings. 

VI 

He sings, he sways and reels o'er the flashing 
golden wheels, 
For he sees far, far below, 
The little dwindling earth and the land that gave 
him birth 
And the Northlands white with snow. 

VII 

And he shakes the maddened reins o'er the 
gleaming seas and plains 
And the chariot swings and sways, 
Swifter, swifter he would fly than the Master of 
the sky, 
The Lord of the sunbeams and bays. 



70 THE RIDE OF PHAETHON 

VIII 

And each high immortal steed that had never 
known the need 
Of Apollo's lash or goad, 
Tossed the cataract of its mane o'er its quivering 
croup again 
And ramped on the sun-bright road. 

IX 

Beautiful, insolent, -fierce, 

For an instant, a whirlwind of radiance, 
Tossing their manes, 

Rampant over the dazzled universe 

They struggled, while Phaethon, Phaethon tugged 

at the reins. 

x 

Then, like a torrent, a tempest of splendour, a 

hurricane rapture of wrath and derision 

Down they galloped, a great white thunder of 

glory, down the terrible sky; 



THE BIDE OF PHAETHON 71 

Till earth with her rivers and seas and meadows 

broadened, and filled up the field of their 

vision 

And mountains leapt from the plains to meet 

them, and all the forests and fields drew nigh. 

XI 

All the bracken and grass of the mountains 
flamed and the valleys of corn were wasted, 
All the blossoming forests of Africa withered 
and shrivelled beneath their flight; 
Then, then first, those ambrosial Edens of old by 
the wheels of the Sun were blasted, 
Leaving a dread Sahara, lonely, burnt and 
blackened to greet the night. 

XII 

Upward they swerved and swooped once more, 
the great white steeds, outstretched at the 
gallop, 



72 THE BIDE OF PHAETHON 

The round earth dwindled beneath their 

flight, the mighty chariot swayed and 

swung 
Under the feet of the charioteer, it swung and 

swayed as a storm-swept shallop 
Tosses and leaps in the seas, and Phaethon, 

cowering, close to the sides of it clung. 

XIII 

For now to the stars, to the stars, they surged, 
and the earth was a dwindling gleam there- 
under, 
Yea, now to the home of the Father of gods, 
and he rose in the wrath that none can quell, 

Beholding the mortal charioteer, and the rolling 
heavens were rent with his thunder, 
And Phaethon, smitten, reeled from the 
chariot ! Backward and out of it, headlong 
he fell. 



THE BIDE OF PHAETHON 73 

XIV 

Down, down, down, down from the glittering 
heights of the firmament hurled 

Like a falling star, in a circle of fire, down the 
sheer abysm of doom, 
Down to the hiss and the heave of the seas far 
out on the ultimate verge of the world, 

That leapt with a roar to meet him, he fell, 
and they covered him o'er with their glori- 
ous gloom, 

Covered him deep with their rolling gloom, 

Their depths of pitiful gloom. 



THE EMPIRE-BUILDERS 

Who are the Empire-builders? They 

Whose desperate arrogance demands 
A self-reflecting power to sway 

A hundred little selfless lands? 
Lord God of battles, ere we bow 

To these and to their soulless lust, 
Let fall thy thunders on us now 

And strike us equal to the dust. 

Before the stars in heaven were made 
Our great Commander led us forth ; 

And now the embattled lines are laid 
To East, to West, to South, to North; 

According as of old He planned 

We take our station in the field, 

74 



THE EMPIBE-BUILDERS 75 

Nor dare to dream we understand 
The splendour of the swords we wield. 

We know not what the Soul intends 

That lives and moves behind our deeds ; 
We wheel and march to glorious ends 

Beyond the common soldier's needs: 
And some are raised to high rewards, 

And some by regiments are hurled 
To die upon the opposing swords 

And sleep — forgotten by the world. 

And not where navies churn the foam, 

Nor called to fields of fierce emprise, 
In many a country cottage-home. 

The Empire-builder lives and dies: 
Or through the roaring street he goes 

A lean and weary City slave 
The conqueror of a thousand foes 

Who walks, unheeded, to his grave. 



76 THE EMPIRE-BUILDERS 

Leaders unknown of hopes forlorn 

Go past us in the daily mart, 
With many a shadowy crown of thorn 

And many a kingly broken heart: 
Though England's banner overhead 

Ever the secret signal flew, 
We only see its Cross is red 

As children see the skies are blue. 

For all are Empire-builders here, 

Whose hearts are true to heaven and home 
And, year by slow revolving year, 

Fulfil the duties as they come; 
So simple seems the task, and yet 

Many for this are crucified ; 
Ay, and their brother-men forget 

The simple wounds in palm and side. 

For hearts that to their home are true 
Where'er the tides of power may flow, 



THE EMPIBE-BUILDEBS 77 

Have built a kingdom great and new 
Which Time nor Fate shall overthrow; 

These are the Empire-builders, these 
Annex where none shall say them nay, 

Beyond the world's uncharted seas, 
Realms that can never pass away. 



NELSON'S YEAR — 1905 

i 
'New Year, be good to England !' 
This year, a hundred years ago, 
The world attended, breathless, on the gathering 
pomp of war, 
While England and her deathless dead, 
with all their mighty hearts aglow, 
Swept onward like the dawn of doom to triumph 
at Trafalgar; 
Then the world was hushed to wonder 
As the cannon's dying thunder 
Broke out again in muffled peals across the 
heaving sea, 
And home the Victor came at last, 
Home, home, with England's flag half- 
mast, 

78 



NELSON'S YEAR — 1905 79 

That never dipped to foe before, on Nelson's 
Victory. 

ii 

God gave this year to England ; 

And what God gives He takes again ; 
God gives us life, God gives us death: our 
victories have wings. 
He gives us love and in its heart He hides 
the whole world's heart of pain ! 
We gain by loss : impartially the eternal balance 
swings ! 
Ay ; in the fire we cherish 
Our thoughts and dreams may perish ; 
Yet shall it burn for England's sake triumphant 
as of old ! 
What sacrifice could gain for her 
Our own shall still maintain for her 
And hold the gates of freedom wide that take no 
keys of gold. 



80 NELSON'S TEAR — 1905 

III 

God gave this year to England; 
Her eyes are far too bright for tears 
Of sorrow; by her silent dead she kneels, too 
proud for pride; 
Their blood, their love, have bought her 
right to claim the new imperial years 
In England's name for Freedom, in whose love 
her children died; 
In whose love, though hope may dwindle, 
Love and brotherhood shall kindle 
Between the striving nations as a choral song 
takes fire, 
Till new hope, new faith, new wonder 
Cleave the clouds of doubt asunder, 
And speed the union of mankind in one divine 
desire. 

IV 

Hasten the Kingdom, England ; 
This year across the listening world 



NELSON'S YEAR — 1905 81 

There came a sound of mingled tears where 
victory and defeat 
Clasped hands ; and Peace — among the 
dead — stood wistfully, with white 
wings furled, 
Knowing the strife was idle; for the night and 
morning meet, 
Yet there is no disunion 
In heaven's divine communion 
As through the gates of twilight the harmonious 
morning pours ; 
Ah, God speed that grander morrow 
When the world's divinest sorrow 
Shall show how Love stands knocking at the 
world's unopened doors. 

v 
Hasten the Kingdom, England! 
Look up across the narrow seas, 

G 



82 nelson's tear — 1905 

Across the great white nations to thy dark 
imperial throne 
Where now three hundred million souls 
attend on thine august decrees 
Ah, bow thine head in humbleness, the Kingdom 
is thine own: 
Not for the pride or power 
God gave thee this in dower; 
But, now the West and East have met and wept 
their mortal loss, 
Now that their tears have spoken 
And the long dumb spell is broken, 
Is it nothing that thy banner bears the red 
eternal cross ? 

VI 

Ay ! Lift the flag of England; 
And lo, that Eastern cross is there, 
Veiled with a hundred meanings as our English 
eyes are veiled; 



NELSON'S YEAR — 1905 83 

Yet to the grander dawn we move oblivi- 
ous of the sign we bear, 
Oblivious of the heights we climb until the last 
is scaled ; 
Then with all the earth before us 
And the great cross floating o'er us 
We shall break the sword we forged of old, so 
weak we were and blind ; 
While the inviolate heaven discloses 
England's Rose of all the roses 
Dawning wide and ever wider o'er the kingdom 
of mankind. 

VII 

Hasten the Kingdom, England; 
For then all nations shall be one; 
One as the ordered stars are one that sing upon 
their way, 
One with the rhythmic glories of the swing- 
ing sea and the rolling sun, 



84 NELSON'S TEAR — 1905 

One with the flow of life and death, the tides of 
night and day; 
One with all dreams of beauty, 
One with all laws of duty ; 
One with the weak and helpless while the one 
sky burns above; 
Till eyes by tears made glorious 
Look up at last victorious 
And lips that starved break open in one song of 
life and love. 

VIII 

' New Year, be good to England ; ' 
And when the Spring returns again 
Rekindle in our English hearts the universal 
Spring, 
That we may wait in faith upon the former 
and the latter rain, 
Till all waste places burgeon and the wildernesses 
sing; 



NELSON'S TEAR — 1905 85 

Pour the glory of thy pity 
Through the dark and troubled city ; 
Pour the splendour of thy beauty over wood and 
meadow fair; 
May the God of battles guide thee 
And the Christ-child walk beside thee 
With a word of peace for England in the dawn 
of Nelson's Year. 



IN TIME OF WAR 

i 

To-night o'er Bagshot heath the purple heather 

Rolls like dumb thunder to the splendid West ; 

And mighty ragged clouds are massed together 

Above the scarred old common's broken 

breast ; 

And there are hints of blood between the 
boulders, 
Red glints of fiercer blossom, bright and bold; 
And round the shaggy mounds and sullen shoul- 
ders 
The gorse repays the sun with savage gold. 

And now, as in the West the light grows holy, 
And all the hollows of the heath grow dim, 



IN TIME OF WAR 87 

Far off, a sulky rumble rolls up slowly 
Where guns at practice growl their evening 
hymn. 

And here and there in bare clean yellow spaces 
The print of horse-hoofs like an answering cry 

Strikes strangely on the sense from lonely places 
Where there is nought but empty heath and 
sky. 

The print of warlike hoofs, where now no figure 
Of horse or man along the sky's red rim 

Breaks on the low horizon's rough black rigour 
To make the gorgeous waste less wild and 
grim; 

Strangely the hoof-prints strike, a Crusoe's 
wonder, 
Framed with sharp furze amongst the footless 
fells 



88 IN TIME OF WAR 

A menace and a mystery, rapt asunder, 
As if the whole wide world contained nought 
else, — 

Nought but the grand despair of desolation 

Between us and that wild, how far, how near, 
Where, clothed with thunder, nation grapples 
nation, 
And Slaughter grips the clay-cold hand of 
Fear. 

ii 

And far above the purple heath the sunset stars 
awaken, 
And ghostly hosts of cloud across the West 
begin to stream, 
And all the low soft winds with muffled cannon- 
ades are shaken, 
And all the blood-red blossom draws aloof 
into a dream : 



IN TIME OF WAR 89 

A dream — no more — and round the dream the 
clouds are curled together; 
A dream of two great stormy hosts embat- 
tled in the sky; 
For there against the low red heavens each 
purple clump of heather 
Becomes a serried host of spears around a 
battle-cry; 

Becomes the distant battle-field or brings the 
dream so near it 
That, almost, as the purple smoke around 
them reels and swims, 
A thousand grey-lipped faces flash — ah, hark, 
the heart can hear it — 
The sharp command, the clash of steel, the 
sudden sough of limbs. 

And through the purple thunders there are silent 
shadows creeping 



90 IN TIME OF WAR 

With murderous gleams of light, and then — 

a mighty leaping roar 
Where foe and foe are met ; and then — a long 

low sound of weeping 
As Death laughs out from sea to sea, another 

fight is o'er. 

Another fight — but ah, how much is over ? 
Night descending 
Draws o'er the scene her ghastly moon-shot 
veil with piteous hands; 
But all around the bivouac-glare the shadowy 
pickets wending 
See sights, hear sounds that only war's own 
madness understands. 

No circle of the accursed dead where dreaming 
Dante wandered, 
No city of death's eternal dole could match 
this mortal world 



IN TIME OF WAR 91 

Where men, before the living soul and quivering 
flesh are sundered, 
Through all the bestial shapes of pain to one 
wide grave are hurled. 

But in the midst for those who dare beyond the 
fringe to enter 
Be sure one kingly figure lies with pale and 
blood-soiled face, 
And round his brows a ragged crown of thorns ; 
and in the centre 
Of those pale folded hands and feet the sigil 
of his grace. 

See, how the pale limbs, marred and scarred in 

love's lost battle, languish; 
See how the splendid passion still smiles 

quietly from his eyes; 
Come, come and see a king indeed, who triumphs 

in his anguish, 



92 IN TIME OF WAR 

Who conquers here in utter loss beneath the 
eternal skies. 

For unto lips so deadly calm what answer shall 
be given? 
Oh pale, pale king so deadly still beneath the 
unshaken stars, 
Who shall deny thy kingdom here, though 
heaven and earth were riven 
With the last roar of onset in the world's 
intestine wars? 

All round him reeks the obscene red hell — the 
scream of haggled horses, 
The curse, the moan, the tossing arms, the 
hideous twisted forms, 
Where, as the surgeons call up life's last pitiful 
resources, 
The darkness heaves around them like a mass 
of mangled worms. 



IN TIME OF WAR 93 

'Life, doctor, life!' 'Be wise; you'd better 
die: 'twill soon be over,' — 
The blackened trunk drops guttering back, the 
mouth is dumb again: 
1 What use were life to you, my lad ? she wouldn't 
know her lover, 
And cruelty here is pity's best — to put you 
out of pain.' 

And far away in lonely homes the lamp of hope 

is burning, 
All night the white-faced women wait with 

aching eyes of prayer, 
All night the little children dream of father's 

glad returning; 

All night he lies beneath the stars and — 
dreams no more out there. 

Only the senseless clay-cold hand may clasp 
some crumpled letter, — 



94 IN TIME OF WAR 

A lantern — see — the big round scrawl, the 

child's long-studied phrase" 
' When Dadda comes again ... his girl will try 

so much much better : 
She'll be much taller, too; and much more 

grown up in her ways.' 

The laugh is Death's; he laughs as erst o'er 
hours that England cherished, 
' Count up, count up the stricken homes that 
wail the first-born son, 
Count by your starved and fatherless the tale 
of what hath perished ; 
Then gather with your foes and ask if you — 
or I — have won.' 

in 

O'er Bagshot heath it rolls, the old old story, — 
The great moon dawns; the sunset dies 
away ; 



IN TIME OF WAR 95 

Year strengthens year as glory kindles glory 
From its own sad procession of decay. 

When shall the sun-dawn of the perfect nation, 
Rise pure and white above the blood-red sea ; 

When shall war die and by death's new creation 
Begin the long-sought world-wide harmony? 

Nearer, still nearer creeps the light we hope for, 
Yet still eludes our war-worn aching eyes : 

Nearer, still nearer, steals the truth we grope for, 
Yet, as we think to grasp it, fades and flies. 

The world rolls on; and love and peace are mated: 
Still on the breast of England, like a star, 

The blood-red lonely heath blows, consecrated, 
A brooding practice-ground for blood-red war. 

Yet is there nothing out of tune with Nature 
There, where the skylark showers his earliest 
song, 



96 IN TIME OF WAR 

Where sun and wind have moulded every feature, 
And one world-music bears each note along. 

There many a brown-winged kestrel swoops or 
hovers 

In poised and patient quest of his own prey; 
And there are fern-clad glens where happy lovers 

May kiss the murmuring summer noon away. 

There, as the primal earth was — all is glorious 

Perfect and wise and wonderful in view 
Of that great heaven through which we rise 
victorious 
O'er all that strife and change and death can 
do. 
No nation yet has risen o'er earth's first nature ; 

Though love illumed each individual mind, 
Still, like some dark half-formed primeval 
creature 
The fierce mob crawled a thousand years be- 
hind. 



IN TIME OF WAR 97 

Still on the standards of the great World-Powers 
Lion and bear and eagle sullenly brood, 

Whether the slow folds flap o'er halcyon hours 
Or stream tempestuously o'er fields of blood. 

By war's red evolution we have risen 
Far, since fierce Erda chose her conquering 
few, 
And out of Death's red gates and Time's grey 
prison 
They burst, elect from battle, tried and true, 

Tempered like sword-blades; but life's vast 
procession 
Has passed beyond the help of war's wild day, 
The day where now a world in retrogression 
Goes hurrying down the broad and hopeless 
way. 

For now Death mocks at youth and love and 
glory, 

H 



98 IN TIME OF WAR 

Chivalry slinks behind his loaded mines, 
With meaner murderous lips War tells her story, 
And round her cunning brows no laurel shines. 

And here to us the eternal charge is given 
To rise and make our low world touch God's 
high: 
To hasten God's own kingdom, Man's own 
heaven, 
And teach Love's grander army how to die. 

No kingdom then, no long-continuing city 
Shall e'er again be stablished by the sword; 

No blood-bought throne defy the powers of pity, 
No despot's crown outweigh one helot's word. 

Imperial England, breathe thy marching orders : 
The great host waits ; the end, the end is close, 

When earth shall know thy peace in all her 
borders, 
And all her deserts blossom with thy Rose. 



IN TIME OF WAR 99 

Princedoms and peoples rise and flash and perish 

As the dew passes from the flowering thorn ; 
Yet the one Kingdom that our dreams still 
cherish 
Lives in a light that blinds the world's red 
morn. 

Hasten the Kingdom, England, the days darken ; 
We would not have thee slacken watch or 
ward, 
Nor doff thine armour till the whole world 
hearken, 
Nor till Time bid thee lay aside the sword. 

Hasten the Kingdom; hamlet, heath, and city, 
We are all at war, one bleeding bulk of pain ; 

Little we know; but one thing — by God's pity — 
We know, and know all else on earth is vain. 

We know not yet how much we dare, how little ; 
We dare not dream of peace; yet, as at need, 

tore 



100 IN TIME OF WAR 

England, God help thee, let no jot or tittle 
Of Love's last law go past thee without heed. 

Who saves his life shall lose it ! The great ages 
Bear witness — Rome and Babylon and Tyre 

Cry from the dust-stopped lips of all their sages, 
There is no hope if man can climb no higher. 

England, by God's grace set apart to ponder 

A little while from battle, ah, take heed, 
Keep watch, keep watch, beside thy sleeping 
thunder; 
Call down Christ's pity while those others 
bleed; 

Waken the God within thee, while the sorrow 
Of battle surges round a distant shore, 

While Time is thine, lest on some deadly mor- 
row 
The moving ringer write — but thine no more. 



IN TIME OF WAR 101 

Little we know — but though the advancing 
aeons 
Win every painful step by blood and fire, 
Though tortured mouths must chant the world's 
great paeans, 
And martyred souls proclaim the world's de- 
sire; 

Though war be nature's engine of rejection, 
Soon, soon, across her universal verge 

The great surviving host of Time's election 
Shall into God's diviner light emerge. 

Hasten the Kingdom, England, queen and 

mother; 

Little we know of all Time's works and ways ; 

Yet this, this, this is sure: we need none 

other 

Knowledge or wisdom, hope or aim or praise, 



102 IN TIME OF WAR 

But to keep this one stormy banner flying 
In this one faith that none shall e'er dis- 
prove, 
Then drive the embattled world before thee, 
crying, 
There is one Emperor, whose name is Love. 



TO ENGLAND IN 1907 

(a prayer that she might speak for peace) 

I 

Now is thy foot set on the splendid way! 

Hold this hour fast, though yet the skies be grey : 

Lift up thy voice to greet the perfect day, 

Speak, England, speak across the trembling 

sea. 

ii 

E'en now the grandest dawn that ever rose 
Is flooding heaven with glory: the light grows 
White as a star where thy keen helmet glows 
Fronting the morn that sets all nations free. 

in 
Speak, from thine island throne ! Here, in thy 

Gate, 
Now, for thy voice alone, the nations wait: 

103 



104 TO ENGLAND IN 1907 

Speak, with the heart that made and keeps thee 
great, 
Speak the great word of peace from sea to sea. 

IV 

The nations wait, scarce knowing what they 

need: 
Cold cunning claims their ears for lust and greed ! 
The poor and weak, with struggling hands that 

bleed 
Pray to thee now that thou wilt set them free. 

v 

Thou that hast dared so many a thunder-blast 
Is all thy vaunted empery so soon past? 
First of the first, art thou afraid at last 
To hold thy hands out first across the sea ? 

VI 

Not for such fears God gave thee thy rich dower, 
The sea-wrought sceptre and the imperial power ! 



TO ENGLAND IN 1907 105 

Ages have poured their blood for this one hour 
That thou might'st speak and set the whole 
world free. 

VII 

The poor and weak uplift their manacled hands 
To thee, our Mother, our Lady and Queen of 

lands : 
Anguished in prayer before thy footstool stands 
Peace, with her white wings glimmering o'er 

the sea. 

VIII 

Others may shrink whose naked frontiers face 
A million foemen of an alien race; 
But thou, Imperial, by thy pride of place, 
0, canst thou falter or fear to set them free ? 

IX 

Thou, thou alone canst speak ; thou, thou alone, 
From the sure citadel of thy rock-bound throne : 



106 TO ENGLAND IN 1907 

Trust thy strong heart ; thine island is thine own, 
Girt with the thunder and lightning of the sea. 

x 

Fools prate of pride where butchered legions fall ; 
Peace has one battle sterner than them all, 
(England, on thee our ringing trumpets call !) 
One battle that shall set the whole world free. 

XI 

Speak, speak and act ! The sceptre is in thine 

hand; 
Proclaim the reign of love from land to land ; 
Then, come the world against thee, thou shalt 

stand ! 
Speak, with the world-wide voice of thine own 

sea. 



IN CLOAK OF GREY 

i 
Love's a pilgrim, cloaked in grey, 

And his feet are pierced and bleeding; 
Have ye seen him pass this way 

Sorrowfully pleading? 
Ye that weep the world away 
Have ye seen King Love to-day? 

ii 
Yea, we saw him; but he came 

Poppy-crowned and white of limb, 
Song had touched his lips to flame, 

And his eyes were drowsed and dim; 

And we kissed the hours away 

Till night grew rosier than the day. 
107 



108 IN CLOAK OF GREY 

III 

Hath he left you ? — Yea, he left us 

A little while ago; 
Of his laughter quite bereft us 

And his limbs of snow: 
We know not why he went away, 
Who ruled our revels yesterday! — 

IV 

Because ye did not understand 

Love cometh from afar, 
A pilgrim out of Holy Land, 

Guided by a star; 
Last night he came in cloak of grey 
Begging ! Ye knew him not ! He went his way. 



A RIDE FOR THE QUEEN 

Queen of queens, oh lady mine, 

You who say you love me, 
Here's a cup of crimson wine 

To the stars above me; 
Here's a cup of blood and gall 

For a soldier's quaffing! 
What's the prize to crown it all? 

Death? I'll take it laughing! 
I ride for the Queen to-night ! 

Though I find no knightly fee 

Waiting on my lealty, 
High upon the gallows-tree 

Faithful to my fealty, 
What had I but love and youth, 

Hope and fame in season? 

109 



110 A BIDE FOB THE QUEEN 

She has proved that more than truth 
Glorifies her treason ! 

Would that other do as much? 

Ah, but if in sorrow 
Some forgotten look or touch 

Pierce her heart to-morrow, 
She might love me yet, I think; 

So her lie befriends me, 
Though I know there's darker drink 

Down the road she sends me. 

Ay, one more great chance is mine ! 

(Can I faint or falter?) 
She shall pour my blood like wine, 

Make my heart her altar, 
Burn it to the dust ! For, there, 

What if o'er the embers 
She should stoop and — I should hear - 

' Hush ! Thy love remembers ! ' 



A BIDE FOR THE QUEEN HI 

One more chance for every word 

Whispered to betray me, 
While she buckled on my sword, 

Smiling to allay me; 
One more chance; ah, let me not 

Mar her perfect pleasure; 
Love shall pay me, jot by jot, 

Measure for her measure. 

Faith shall think I never knew, 

I will be so fervent ! 
Doubt shall dream I dreamed her true, 

As her war-worn servant! 
Whoso flouts her spotless name 

(Love, I wear thy token !) 
He shall face one sword of flame 

Ere the lie be spoken ! 

God, the world is white with May, 
(Fragrant as her bosom !) 



112 A RIDE FOR THE QUEEN 

Could I find a sweeter way 
Through the year's young blossom, 

Where her warm red mouth on mine 
Woke my soul's desire? 

Hey! The cup of crimson wine, 
Blood and gall and fire! 

Castle Doom or Gates of Death? 

(Smile again for pity !) 
'Boot and horse,' my lady saith, 

'Spur against the City, 
Bear this message ! ' God and she 

Still forget the guerdon; 
Nay, the rope is on the tree! 

That shall bear the burden! 
I ride for the Queen to-night ! 



SONG 

i 
When that I loved a maiden 

My heaven was in her eyes, 
And when they bent above me 

I knew no deeper skies; 
But when her heart forsook me, 

My spirit broke its bars, 
For grief beyond the sunset 

And love beyond the stars. 

n 
When that I loved a maiden, 

She seemed the world to me: 
Now is my soul the universe, 

My dreams — the sky and sea! 

i 113 



114 SONG 

There bends no heaven above me, 

No glory binds or bars 
My grief beyond the sunset, 

My love beyond the stars. 

in 
When that I loved a maiden, 

I worshipped where she trod; 
But, when she clove my heart, the cleft 

Set free the imprisoned god; 
Then was I King of all the world ! 

My soul had burst its bars 
For grief beyond the sunset 

And love beyond the stars. 



EVE'S APPLE 

i 
When you leant thro' the leaves with your slow 

red smile and your ivory body bare, 
Ah, what was the fruit you gathered that day, 

white Eve with the dusky hair? 
For we took it and ate it together and laughed ! 

Your white teeth bit to the core. 
There was little to leave for the doves to peck, 

when our delicate feast was o'er. 

ii 

The ripe fruit breathed of kisses, you said, as 
your breasts' white apples may; 

But your body was cold from the coils of the 
snake when you came to my arms that day : 

115 



116 EVE'S APPLE 

There was blood, red blood on our lips, white 
Eve, as we nibbled away in the sun; 

But I knew that the fruit was my heart, white 
Eve, 

The red rent core of my heart, white Eve, 

Which we gnawed and left for the rats, white 
Eve, when our delicate feast was done. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF A SONG 

i 

'Come to me in my dreams!' — how oft 
With eyes how kind and voice how soft, 
I heard thee sing, at fall of day, 
The scholar poet's tenderest lay. 
******* 

ii 
But oh, come not to me; for then 
The dear dead love will stir again; 
And when the cold light bids me wake 
With each new day my heart will break. 

in 

Come not in dreams; how could I bear 

Once more to feel thy love so near, 

And dream it true, yet inly know 

What bitter treachery lurked below? 
117 



118 RECOLLECTIONS OF A SONG 

IV 

Come not, as thou wilt come, despite 
All prayers, in watches of the night, 
With eyes made bright by foolish tears 
And fleeting gleams of happier years. 

v 

Come not, as thou hast come of old, 

To flood a sunless world with gold, 
Or, with the mockery of a smile, 
Cheat me to dream thee kind awhile. 

VI 

Come not, as thou so oft didst come, 
When sorrow made me blind and dumb, 
To lay false lips on mine and say 
'Sweet love can never pass away/ 

VII 

Gome not in dreams to me; for then 
The dear dead love will stir again; 
And } when the cold light bids me wake, 
With each new day my heart will break. 



E TENEBRIS 

i 
Into the keeping of death 

I commend my love, 
Into the gloom of the grave 

And the lasting sleep! 
Yet there is hope, one saith, 

In some glory above, 
For the broken, the broken wave 

That is lost in the deep. 

ii 

0, I know not their meaning at all, 

They speak idly to me, 
Who say that the lost things return 

As day folio weth night ! 

119 



120 E TENEBBIS 

I watch the leaves fall 
And waves break on the sea, 

And the strange skies that burn 
With the stranger day's light. 

in 
Shall I care if another day greet me 

In crimson and gold, 
Though the skies be still blue 

When the eyes that were kind 
Flash no longer to meet me 

As of old, as of old, 
With a love that was true, 

Or a dream that was blind? 

IV 

I have no hope, no faith, 

No desire any more, 
That the last year's flower 

Should return to the spray: 



E TENEBJRIS 121 

1 Spring cometh, spring cometh/ one saith; 

But who shall restore 
Just the one perished hour 

Of that one perished May? 



SONNET 

Love, when the great hour knelled for thee and 
me, 
The great hour that should prove thee false 
or true, 
When life surged round us like a wintry sea 
And thy heart feared to say what both hearts 
knew; 
When all thy vows and honeyed words were 
proven 
False to the core of thy poor treacherous heart ; 
When by God's fire my heart's false heaven was 
cloven 
And, white and dumb, our torn souls turned 
to part; 
0, never think — for all the flash and thunder 
That showed us the dead body at our feet, 

122 



SONNET 123 

Though heaven and hell conspired our souls to 

sunder 
And though we twain in hell nor heaven shall 

meet, 
Think not, where'er Love's clay-wrought idols 

lie, 
The Love to which I prayed through these can 

die. 



THE REAL DANTE 

i 

Love, Love, Love, Death robbed me unaware, 
Undreaming that we ne'er should meet again, 
Else had one soul's infinity of pain 

Moated thee round with waves for Hell to dare. 

Yea, in that fight, even now, might I but share, 
Poor craven I, who yet on earth remain, 
Heaven, heaven itself should menace us in vain, 

Thy heart on mine, my lips upon thine hair. 

I have lost courage, Love, in losing thee, 
Courage to bear this wonder of the sky, 

Courage to front that dark Eternity, 
Courage to brook life's pitiful riddle — Why, 
Why hath God hurt us thus? Poor broken cry 

Quivering, unanswered, o'er the world's wide 
sea! 

124 



THE BEAL DANTE 125 

II 

And thou art sleeping on that silent shore ! 

And thou can'st never, never, once return ! 

Not though the starved heart strain to thee 
and yearn, 
And the lame hands reach upward and implore, 
And the wrenched lips reiterate, o'er and o'er, 

One thought wherewith the pitiless planets 
burn, 

One lesson life is all too short to learn, 
One simple sob of the soul — No more, no more ! 

My life shall never learn it ! Come thou back, 
0, give the lie to all this dust hath said ! 

Come, let the stars retrace their shining track, 
Steal from that solemn midnight of the dead ! 

Though as a dream thou canst but pass me by, 

Come, give my heart the strength to break and 
die. 



A PRAYER 

Only a little, Father, only to rest 
Or ever the night come and the Eternal sleep, 
Only to rest for a little, a little to weep 

In the dead love's pitiful arms, on the dead 
love's breast, 

A little to loosen the frozen fountains, to free 
Rivers of blood and tears that should slacken 

the pulse 
Of this pitiless heart and appease these pangs 
that convulse 
Body and soul ! 0, out of Eternity, 

A moment to whisper, only a moment to tell 

My dead, my dead, what words are so helpless 

to say — 

126 



A PBAYEB 127 

The dreams unuttered, the prayers no passion 
could pray — 
And then, the eternal sleep or the pains of hell, 

I could welcome them, Father, gladly as ever 
a child 
Laying his head on the pillow might turn to 

his rest 
And remember in dreams, as the hand of the 
mother is prest 
On his hair, how the Pitiful blessed him of old 
and smiled. 



OLD JAPAN AT EARL'S COURT 

i 
Of old Japan — how far away ! — 

We dreamed — how long ago ! — 
We saw by twisted creek and bay 

The blue plum-blossoms blow, 
And dragons coiling down below 

Like dragons on a fan, 
And pig-tailed sailors lurching slow 

Thro' streets of old Japan. 

ii 

Who knows that land — that dim blue day 

Where white tea-roses grow? 

Only a penny all the way 

They cry in Pimlico: 
128 



OLD JAPAN AT EARL' S COURT 129 
The busses rumble to and fro, 

Ah, catch one if you can, 
And see the paper-lanterns glow 

Thro' streets of old Japan. 

in 
What need we more than youth and May 

To make our Miyako ? 
A chuckle from the cherry spray 

A cherub's mocking crow, 
A sudden twang, a sweet swift throe 

As Daisy trips by Dan, 
And careless Cupid drops his bow 

And laughs — from old Japan. 

IV 

And there the cherry bough shall sway 
The peach-bloom shed its snow, 

With scents and petals strewn astray 
Till night be sweet enow: 

K 



130 OLD JAPAN AT EABL'S COURT 
Then lovers wander, whispering low 

As lovers only can 
Where rosy paper lanterns glow 
Through streets of old Japan. 



OXFORD REVISITED 

Timid and strange, like a ghost, I pass the famil- 
iar portals, 
Echoing now like a tomb, they accept me no 
more as of old; 
Yet I go wistfully onward, a shade thro' a king- 
dom of mortals 
Wanting a face to greet me, a hand to grasp 
and to hold. 

Hardly I know as I go if the beautiful City is only 
Mocking me under the moon, with its streams 
and its willows agleam, 
Whether the City of friends or I that am friend- 
less and lonely, 
Whether the boys that go by or the time-worn 
towers be the dream ; 

131 



132 OXFORD REVISITED 

Whether the walls that I know, or the unknown 
fugitive faces, 
Faces like those that I loved, faces that haunt 
and waylay, 
Faces so like and unlike, in the dim unforgettable 
places, 
Startling the heart into sickness that aches 
with the sweet of the May, — 

Whether all these or the world with its wars be 
the wandering shadows ! 
Ah, sweet over green-gloomed waters the may 
hangs, crimson and white; 
And quiet canoes creep down by the warm gold 
dusk of the meadows 
Lapping with little splashes and ripples of 
silvery light. 

Others like me have returned : I shall see the old 
faces to-morrow, 



OXFORD REVISITED 133 

Down by the gay-coloured barges, alert for 
the throb of the oars, 
Wanting to row once again, or tenderly jesting 
with sorrow 
Up the old stairways and noting the strange 
new names on the doors. 

Is it a dream ? And I know not nor care if there 
be an awaking 
Ever at all any more, for the years that have 
torn us apart, 
Few, so few as they are, will ever be rending and 
breaking : 
Sooner by far than I knew have they wrought 
this change for my heart ! 

Well ; I grow used to it now ! Could the dream 
but remain and for ever, 
With the flowers round the grey quadrangle 
laughing as time grows old ! 



134 OXFORD REVISITED 

For the waters go down to the sea, but the sky 
still gleams on the river ! 
We plucked them — but there shall be lilies, 
ivory lilies and gold. 

And still, in the beautiful City, the river of life is 
no duller, 
Only a little strange as the eighth hour dreamily 
chimes, 
In the City of friends and echoes, ribbons and 
music and colour, 
Lilac and blossoming chestnut, willows and 
whispering limes. 

Over the Radcliffe Dome the moon as the ghost 

of a flower 
Weary and white awakes in the phantom fields 

of the sky : 
The trustful shepherded clouds are asleep over 

steeple and tower, 



OXFORD REVISITED 135 

Dark under Magdalen walls the Cher like a 
dream goes by. 

Back, we come wandering back, poor ghosts, to 
the home that one misses 
Out in the shelterless world, the world that 
was heaven to us then, 
Back from the coil and the vastness, the stars 
and the boundless abysses, 
Like monks from a pilgrimage stealing in bliss 
to their cloisters again. 

City of dreams that we lost, accept now the gift 
we inherit — 
Love, such a love as we knew not of old in the 
blaze of our noon, 
We that have found thee at last, half City, half 
heavenly Spirit, 
While over a mist of spires the sunset mellows 
the moon. 



EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES 

i 
No more, proud singers, boast no more! 

Your high immortal throne 

Will scarce outlast a king's! 
Time is a sea that hath no shore 

Wherein Death idly flings 

Your fame like some small pebble-stone 
That sinks to rise no more. 

Then boast no more, proud singers, 
Your high immortal throne! 

ii 
This earth, this little grain of dust, 

Drifting among the stars, 

With her invisible wars, 
Her love, her hate, her lust, 

136 



EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES 137 

This microscopic ball 
Whereof you scan a part so small 
Outlasts but little even your own poor dust. 

Then boast no more, proud singers, 
Your high immortal throne! 

in 
That golden spark of light must die, 

Which now you call your sun, 

Soon will its race be run 
Around its trivial sky: 

What hand shall then unroll 

Dead Maro's little golden scroll 
When earth and sun in one wide charnel lie ? 

Boast no more, proud singers ! 
Your high immortal throne 
Will scarce outlast a king's. 



THE TESTIMONY OF ART 

As earth, sad earth, thrusts many a gloomy cape 
Into the sea's bright colour and living glee, 
So do we strive to embay that mystery 

Which earthly hands must ever let escape; 

The Word we seek for is the golden shape 
That shall express the Soul we cannot see, 
A temporal chalice of Eternity 

Purple with beating blood of the hallowed grape. 

Once was it wine and sacramental bread 

Whereby we knew the power that through 

Him smiled 

When, in one still small utterance, He hurled 

The Eternities beneath his feet and said 

With lips, meek as any little child, 

Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. 
138 



SONG 

i 
Nymphs and naiads, come away, 

Love lies dead ! 
Cover the cast-back golden head, 
Cover the lovely limbs with may, 

And with fairest boughs of green 
And many a rose-wreathed brier spray; 
But let no hateful yew be seen 
Where Love lies dead. 

ii 

Let not the quean that would not hear 

(Love lies dead !) 
Or beauty that refused to save 

Exult in one dejected tear; 

139 



140 SONG 

But gather the glory of the year, 
The pomp and glory of the year, 
The triumphing glory of the year, 

And softly, softly, softly shed 
Its light and fragrance round the grave 

Where Love lies dead. 



REMEMBRANCE 

unforgotten lips, grey haunting eyes, 
Soft curving cheeks and heart-remembered 
brow, 

It is all true, the old love never dies, 
And — parted — we must meet for ever now. 

We did not think it true ! We did not think 
Love meant this universal cry of pain, 

This crown of thorn, this vinegar to drink, 
This lonely crucifixion o'er again. 

Yet, through the darkness of the sleepless night, 
Your tortured face comes meekly answering 

mine; 
Dumb, but I know why those mute lips are 

white, 

141 



142 REMEMBRANCE 

Dark, but I know why those dark lashes 
shine. 

Love, Love, Love, and what if this should 

be 
For ever now, through God's Eternity? 



UNITY 

i 
Heart of my heart, the world is young; 

Love lies hidden in every rose ! 
Every song that the skylark sung 

Once, we thought, must come to a close: 
Now we know the spirit of song, 

Song that is merged in the chant of the whole, 
Hand in hand as we wander along, 

What should we doubt of the years that roll ? 

ii 
Heart of my heart, we cannot die ! 

Love triumphant in flower and tree, 
Every life that laughs at the sky 

Tells us nothing can cease to be: 

143 



144 UNITY 

One, we are one with a song to-day, 
One with the clover that scents the wold, 

One with the Unknown, far away, 
One with the stars, when earth grows old. 

in 

Heart of my heart, we are one with the wind, 

One with the clouds that are whirled o'er the 
lea, 
One in many, broken and blind, 

One as the waves are at one with the sea ! 
Ay! when life seems scattered apart, 

Darkens, ends as a tale that is told, 
One, we are one, heart of my heart, 

One still one, while the world grows old. 



JOY AND PAIN 

Beloved, I could not tame thy wild bright 

wings ! 

Thy flight was like a seabird's down the skies : 

I could but catch the brightness of thine 

eyes; 

And then — the wind that buffets, the spray 

that stings 
And lashes and blinds a shore that only rings 
With the elemental storms bore down my 

cries, 
And where the clotted foam in fury flies 
Thou hadst flown rejoicing in all cruel things. 

I know thee now, Beloved, for thou art come 

With blood-stained breast into my fostering 

hand! 
l 145 



146 JOY AND PAIN 

weary wings that have come home again, 
beating heart where every song lies dumb, 

wounded bird, at last I understand, 

1 understand those wild bright eyes of pain. 



IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING 

i 
In the cool of the evening, when the low sweet 
whispers waken, 
When the labourers turn them homeward, 
and the weary have their will, 
When the censers of the roses o'er the forest- 
aisles are shaken 
Is it but the wind that cometh o'er the far 
green hill? 

ii 

For they say 'tis but the sunset winds that 

wander thro' the heather, 

Rustle all the meadow-grass and bend the 

dewy fern: 

147 



148 IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING 

They say 'tis but the winds that bow the reeds 
in prayer together, 
And fill the shaken pools with fire along the 
shadowy burn. 

in 

In the beauty of the twilight, in the Garden 
that He loveth, 
They have veiled his lovely vesture with the 
darkness of a name ! 
Thro' His Garden, thro' His Garden, it is but the 
wind that moveth, 
No more ! But the miracle, the miracle is 
the same. 

IV 

In the cool of the evening, when the sky is an 
old story, 
Slowly dying, but remembered, ay, and loved 
with passion still . . . 



IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING 149 

Hush ! ... the fringes of His garment, in the 
fading golden glory 
Softly rustling as He cometh o'er the far 
green hill. 



THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 

There is a valley of fir-woods in the West 
That slopes between great mountains to the sea. 
Once, at the valley's mouth, a cottage stood: 
Its ruins remain, like boulders of a rock, 
High on the hill, whose base is white with foam. 
To its forsaken garden sometimes come 
Lovers, who lean upon its grass-grown gate 
And listen to the sea-song far below; 
Or little children, with their baskets, trip 
Merrily through the fir-woods and the fern, 
And climb the crumbling thistle-empurpled wall 
Around the tangled copse, and laugh to find 
The hardy straggling raspberries all their own. 

Round it the curlews wheel and cry all night ; 

And, with no other comfort than the stars 
150 



THE COTTAGE OF THE KWDLY LIGHT 151 

Can faintly shed from their familiar heights 
It has been patient, while the world below 
Has hidden itself in darkness and in clouds 
Of terror from the landward-rushing storm. 
Like a small gleam of quartz in a great rock, 
A tiny beacon in the whirling gloom, 
It stood and gathered sorrow from the world. 

There, many years ago, a woman dwelt, 
A sailor's widow with her only son; 
And ever as she hugged him to her heart 
In those glad days when he was but a child, 
Her memories of one black eternal night 
When she had watched and waited for the sail 
That nevermore returned, filled her with one 
Supreme, almost unbreathable, desire 
That this her little one, her living bliss, 
The last caress incarnate of her love, 
Should never leave her side; or, if he left, 



152 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 

Never set forth upon the sea : her flesh 
Shuddered as the sea shuddered in the sun 
Over the cold grave of her first last love 
Even to dream of it ; yet she remained 
Silent and passive on her sea-washed hill, 
Facing the sunset, in that lonely home, 
Where everything bore witness to the sea, — 
The shells her love had brought from foreign 

lands, 
The model ship he built; yet she remained. 
For her first kisses lingered in the scent 
Of those rough wallflowers round the white- 
washed walls, 
And the first flush of love that touched her cheek 
Lingered and lived and died and lived again 
In the pink thrift that nodded by the gate. 
As if these and her outlook o'er the sea 
Were nought else but her soul's one atmosphere, 
Wherein alone she lived and moved and breathed, 



THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 153 

Having no other thought but This is home, 

My part in God's eternity, she still 

Remained. The lad grew; yet her fear was dumb. 

The lad grew, and the white foam kissed his feet 
Sporting upon the verge: the green waves 

laughed 
And smote their hard bright kisses on his lips 
As he swam out to meet them : the whole sea, 
Like some strange symbol of the spiritual deeps 
That hourly lure the soul of man in quest 
Of beauty, pleasure, knowledge, summoned him 

out, 
Out from the old faiths, the old fostering arms 

of home, 
Called him with strange new voices evermore, 
Called him with ringing names of high renown, 
With white-armed sirens in its blossoming waves, 
And heavenly cities in its westering suns; 



154 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 

Called him ; and old adventures filled his heart, 

And he forgot, as all of us forget, 

The imperishable and infinite desire 

Of the vacant arms and bosom that still yearn 

For the little vanished children, still, still ache 

To keep their children little ! He grew wroth 

At aught that savoured of such fostering care 

As mothers long to lavish, aught that seemed 

To rob him of his manhood, his free-will : 

And she — she understood and she was dumb. 

And so the lad grew up ; and he was tall, 
Supple, and sunburnt, and a flower of men. 
His eyes had caught the blue of sea- washed skies, 
And deepened with strange manhood, till, at last, 
One eve in May his mother wandered down 
The hill to await his coming, wistfully 
Wandered, touching with vague and dreaming 
hands 



THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 155 

The uncrumpling fronds of fern and budding 

roses 
As if she thought them but the ghosts of spring. 
From far below the golden breezes brought 
A mellow music from the village church, 
Which o'er the fragrant fir- wood she could see 
Pointing a sky-blue spire to heaven : she knew 
That music, her most heart-remembered song — 

"Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear, 
It is not night if Thou be near! }} 

And as the music made her one with all 
That soft transfigured world of eventide, 
One with the flame that sanctified the West, 
One with the golden sabbath of the sea, 
One with the sweet responses of the woods, 
One with the kneeling mountains, there she saw 
In a tangle of ferns and roses and wild light 
Shot from the sunset through a glade of fir, 



156 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 

Her boy and some young rival in his arms, 
A girl of seventeen summers, dusky-haired, 
Grey-eyed, and breasted like a crescent moon, 
Lifting her red lips in a dream of love 
Up to the red lips of her only son. 
Jealousy numbed the mother's lonely soul, 
And, sickening at the heart, she stole away. 

Yet she said nothing when her boy returned; 
And, after supper, she took down the Book, 
Her own dead grandsire's massive wedding-gift, 
The large-print Bible, like a corner-stone 
Hewn from the solemn fabric of his life — 
An heirloom for the guidance of his sons 
And their sons' sons; and every night her boy 
Read it aloud to her — a last fond link 
Frayed and nigh snapt already, for she knew 
It irked him. And he read, Abide with us, 
For the day is far spent; and she looked at him 



THE COTTAGE OF TEE KINDLY LIGHT 157 

Shyly, furtively. With great tears she gazed 
As on a stranger in her child's new face. 

At last he told her all — told of his love, 
And how he must grow wealthy now and make 
A home for his young sweetheart, how he meant 
To work upon a neighbour's fishing-boat 
Till he could buy one for himself. He ceased ; 
Far off the sea sighed and a curlew wailed ; 
A soft breeze brought a puff of wallflower scent 
Warm through the casement. He looked up and 

smiled 
Into his mother's face, and saw the tears 
Creep through the gnarled old hands that hid 

her eyes. 
He saw the star-light glisten on her tears ! 
He could not understand : her lips were dumb. 

Oh, dumb and patient as our Mother Earth 
Watching from age to age the silent, swift, 



158 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 

Light-hearted progress of her careless sons 
By new-old ways to one unaltering doom, 
Through the long nights she waited as of old 
Till in the dawn — and coloured like the dawn — 
The tawny sails came home across the bar. 
And every night she placed a little lamp 
In the cottage window, that if e'er he gazed 
Homeward by night across the heaving sea 
He might be touched to memory. But she said 
Nothing. The lamp was like the liquid light 
In some dumb creature's eyes, that can but wait 
Until its master chance to see its love 
And deign to touch its brow. 

Now in those days 
There went a preacher through the country-side 
Filling men's hearts with fire; and out at sea 
The sailors sang great hymns to God ; and one 
Stood up one night, among the gleaming nets 
A-stream with silver herring in the moon, 



THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 159 

And pointed to the lamp that burned afar 
And said, ' Such is that Kindly Light we sing ! ' 
And ever afterwards the widow's house 
Was called The Cottage of the Kindly Light. 

One night there came a storm up from the wild 
Atlantic, and a cry of fierce despair 
Rang through the fishing village ; and brave men 
Launched the frail lifeboat through a shawl-clad 

crowd 
Of weeping women. But, high o'er the storm, 
High on the hill one lonely woman stood, 
Amongst the thunders and the driving clouds, 
Searching, at every world-wide lightning glare, 
The sudden miles of white stampeding sea; 
Searching for what she knew was lost, ay lost 
For ever now; but some strange inward pride 
Forbade her to go down and mix with those 
Who could cry out their loss upon the quays. 



160 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 

High on the hill she stood and watched alone, 
Confessing nothing, acknowledging nothing, 
Without one moan, without one outward prayer, 
Buffeted by the scornful universe, 
Over the crash of seas that shook the world 
She stood, one steadfast fragment of the night ; 
And the wind kissed her and the weeping rain. 

But braver men than those who fought the sea 
At dawn tramped up the hill, with aching hearts, 
To break her loss to her who knew it all 
Far better than the best of them. She stood 
Still at her gate and watched them as they came, 
Curiously noting in a strange dull dream 
The gleaming colours, the little rainbow pools 
The dawn made in their rough wet oilskin hats 
And wrinkled coats, like patches of the sea. 

'Lost? My boy lost?' she smiled. 'Nay, he 
will come ! 



THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 161 

To-morrow, or the next day, or the next 
The Kindly Light will bring him home again.' 
And so, whate'er they answered, she would 

say — 
'The Kindly Light will bring him home again;' 
Until, at last, thinking her dazed with grief, 
They gently turned and went. 

She had not wept. 

And ere that week was over, came the girl 
Her boy had loved. With tears and a white 

face 
And garbed in black she came ; and when she 

neared 
The gate, his mother, proud and white with scorn, 
Bade her return and put away that garb 
Of mourning : and the girl saw, shrinking back, 
The boy's own mother wore no sign of grief, 
But all in white she stood ; and like a flash 



162 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 

The girl thought, ' God, she wears her wedding- 
dress ! 
Her grief has driven her mad V 

And all that year 
The widow lit the little Kindly Light 
And placed it in the window. All that year 
She watched and waited for her boy's return 
At dawn from the high hill-top : all that year 
She went in white, though through the village 

streets 
Far, far below, the women went in black; 
For all had lost some man; but all that year 
She said to her friends and neighbours, ' He will 

come; 
He is delayed; some ship has picked him up 
And borne him out to some far-distant land ! 
Why should I mourn the living?' And, at 

dusk, 



THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 163 

As if it were indeed the Kindly Light 

Of faith and hope and love, she lit the lamp 

And placed it in the window. 

The year passed ; 
And on an eve in May her boy's love climbed 
The hill once more, and as the stars came out 
And the dusk gathered round her tenderly, 
And the last boats came stealing o'er the bar, 
And the immeasurable sea lay bright and bare 
And beautiful to all infinity 
Beneath the last faint colours of the sun 
And the increasing kisses of the moon, 
A hymn came on a waft of evening wind 
Along the valley from the village church 
And thrilled her with a new significance 
Unfeit before. It was the hymn they heard 
On that sweet night among the rose-lit fern — 
Sun of my soul; and, as she climbed the hill, 
She wondered, for she saw no Kindly Light 



164 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 

Glimmering from the window; and she thought, 
1 Perhaps the madness leaves her/ There the 

hymn, 
Like one great upward flight of angels, rose 
All round her, mingling with the sea's own 

voice — 

' Come near and bless us when we wake, 
Ere through the world our way we take, — 
Till, in the ocean of Thy love, 
We lose ourselves in heaven above.' 

And when she passed the pink thrift by the gate, 
And the rough wallflowers by the whitewashed 

wall, 
And entered, she beheld the widow kneeling, 
In black, beside the unlit Kindly Light; 
And near her dead cold hand upon the floor 
A fallen taper, for with her last strength 
She had striven to light it and, so failing, died. 



THE THREE SHIPS 

(To an old tune.) 

i 
As I went up the mountain side, 
The sea below me glittered wide, 
And, Eastward, far away, I spied 

On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, 
The three great ships that take the tide 

On Christmas Day in the morning. 

ii 

Ye have heard the song, how these must ply 

From the harbours of home to the ports o' the 

sky! 

Do ye dream none knoweth the whither and why 

On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, 

The three great ships go sailing by 

On Christmas Day in the morning? 
165 



166 THE THREE SHIPS 

III 

Yet, as I live, I never knew 

That ever a song could ring so true, 

Till I saw them break thro' a haze of blue 

On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day; 
And the marvellous ancient flags they flew 

On Christmas Day in the morning ! 

IV 

From heights above the belfried town 

I saw the sails were patched and brown, 

But the flags were aflame with a great renown 

On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, 
And on every mast was a golden crown 

On Christmas Day in the morning. 

v 
Most marvellous ancient ships were these! 
Were their prows a-plunge to the Chersonese 
For the pomp of Rome or the glory of Greece 



THE THREE SHIPS 167 

On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day? 
Were they out on a quest for the Golden Fleece 
On Christmas Day in the morning? 

VI 

And the sun and the wind they told me there 

How goodly a load the three ships bear, 

For the first is gold and the second is myrrh 

On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day; 
And the third is frankincense most rare 

On Christmas Day in the morning. 

VII 

They have mixed their shrouds with the golden 

sky, 
They have faded away where the last dreams 

die . . . 
Ah yet, will ye watch, when the mist lifts high 

On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day? 
Will ye see three ships come sailing by 
On Christmas Day in the morning? 



SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 

PRELUDE 

Dante saw the great white Rose 

Half unclose; 
Dante saw the golden bees 
Gathering from its heart of gold 

Sweets untold, 
Love's most honeyed harmonies. 

Dante saw the threefold bow 

Strangely glow, 
Saw the Rainbow Vision rise, 
And the Flame that wore the crown 

Bending down 
O'er the flowers of Paradise. 

168 



SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 169 

Something yet remained, it seems ; 

In his dreams 
Dante missed — as angels may 
In their white and burning bliss — 

Some small kiss 
Mortals meet with every day. 

Italy in splendour faints 

'Neath her saints ! 
0, her great Madonnas, too, 
Faces calm as any moon 

Glows in June, 
Hooded with the night's deep blue ! 

What remains ? I pass and hear 

Everywhere, 
Ay, or see in silent eyes 

Just the song she still would sing 

Thus — a-swing 
O'er the cradle where He lies. 



170 SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 
I 

Sleep, little baby, I love thee; 

Sleep, little king, I am bending above thee ! 

How should I know what to sing 
Here in my arms as I swing thee to sleep? 
Hushaby low, 
Rockaby so, 
Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring, 
Mother has only a kiss for her king ! 
Why should my singing so make me to weep ? 
Only I know that I love thee, I love thee, 

Love thee, my little one, sleep. 

ii 

Is it a dream? Ah yet, it seems 
Not the same as other dreams ! 

I can but think that angels sang, 

When thou wast born, in the starry sky, 



SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 111 

And that their golden harps out-rang 
While the silver clouds went by ! 

The morning sun shuts out the stars, 

Which are much loftier than the sun; 
But, could we burst our prison-bars 

And find the Light whence light begun, 
The dreams that heralded thy birth 
Were truer than the truths of earth; 
And, by that far immortal Gleam, 
Soul of my soul, I still would dream ! 

A ring of light was round thy head, 
The great-eyed oxen nigh thy bed 
Their cold and innocent noses bowed ! 
Their sweet breath rose like an incense cloud 
In the blurred and mystic lanthorn light ! 

About the middle of the night 

The black door blazed like some great star 

With a glory from afar, 



172 SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 

Or like some mighty chrysolite 
Wherein an angel stood with white 
Blinding arrowy bladed wings 
Before the throne of the King of kings; 
And, through it, I could dimly see 
A great steed tethered to a tree. 

Then, with crimson gems aflame 
Through the door the three kings came, 
And the black Ethiop unrolled 
The richly broidered cloth of gold, 
And poured forth before thee there 
Gold and frankincense and myrrh ! 

in 

See, what a wonderful smile ! Does it mean 
That my little one knows of my love? 

Was it meant for an angel that passed unseen, 
And smiled at us both from above? 



SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 173 

Does it mean that he knows of the birds and the 

flowers 
That are waiting to sweeten his childhood's hours, 
And the tales I shall tell and the games he will 

play, 
And the songs we shall sing and the prayers we 
shall pray 

In his boyhood's May, 
He and I, one day ? 

IV 

All in the warm blue summer weather 
We shall laugh and love together: 

I shall watch my baby growing, 
I shall guide his feet, 

When the orange trees are blowing 
And the winds are heavy and sweet ! 

When the orange orchards whiten 

I shall see his great eyes brighten 



174 SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 

To watch the long-legged camels going 

Up the twisted street, 
When the orange trees are blowing 

And the winds are sweet. 

What does it mean? Indeed, it seems 
A dream! Yet not like other dreams! 

We shall walk in pleasant vales, 
Listening to the shepherd's song 

I shall tell him lovely tales 
All day long : 

He shall laugh while mother sings 

Tales of fishermen and kings. 

He shall see them come and go 

O'er the wistful sea, 
Where rosy oleanders blow 

Round blue Lake Galilee, 
Kings with fishers' ragged coats 
And silver nets across their boats, 



SLUMBEB-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 175 
Dipping through the starry glow, 
With crowns for him and me ! 

Ah, no; 
Crowns for him, not me! 

Rockaby so! Indeed, it seems 

A dream! yet not like other dreams! 

v 

Ah, see what a wonderful smile again ! 

Shall I hide it away in my heart, 
To remember one day in a world of pain 

When the years have torn us apart, 
Little babe, 

When the years have torn us apart ? 

Sleep, my little one, sleep, 
Child with the wonderful eyes, 
Wild miraculous eyes, 

Deep as the skies are deep! 

What star-bright glory of tears 



176 SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 

Waits in you now for the years 
That shall bid you waken and weep? 
Ah, in that day, could I kiss you to sleep 
Then, little lips, little eyes, 
Little lips that are lovely and wise, 
Little lips that are dreadful and wise ! 

VI 

Clenched little hands like crumpled roses 

Dimpled and dear, 
Feet like flowers that the dawn uncloses, 

What do I fear? 
Little hands, will you ever be clenched in anguish? 
White little limbs, will you droop and languish? 

Nay, what do I hear? 
I hear a shouting, far away, 
You shall ride on a kingly palm-strewn way 

Some day ! 

But when you are crowned with a golden crown 



SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 177 

And throned on a golden throne, 
You'll forget the manger of Bethlehem town 

And your mother that sits alone 
Wondering whether the mighty king 
Remembers a song she used to sing, 
Long ago, 
" Rockaby so, 
Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring, 
Mother has only a kiss for her kingV . . . 

Ah, see what a wonderful smile, once more ! 

He opens his great dark eyes ! 
Little child, little king, nay, hush, it is o'er, 

My fear of those deep twin skies, — 
Little child, 

You are all too dreadful and wise ! 

VII 

But now you are mine, all mine, 
And your feet can lie in my hand so small, 

N 



178 SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 

And your tiny hands in my heart can twine, 
And you cannot walk, so you never shall fall, 

Or be pierced by the thorns beside the door, 

Or the nails that lie upon Joseph's floor; 

Through sun and rain, through shadow and shine, 
You are mine, all mine ! 



THE CALL OF THE SPRING 

Come, choose your road and away, my lad, 
Come, choose your road and away ! 

We'll out of the town by the road's bright crown 
As it dips to the dazzling day. 

It's a long white road for the weary ; 
But it rolls through the heart of the May. 

Though many a road would merrily ring 
To the tramp of your marching feet, 

All roads are one from the day that's done, 
And the miles are swift and sweet, 

And the graves of your friends are the mile-stones 
To the land where all roads meet. 

But the call that you hear this day, my lad, 

Is the Spring's old bugle of mirth 
179 



180 THE CALL OF THE SPBIXG 

When the year's green fire in a soul's desire 
Is brought like a rose to the birth; 

And knights ride out to adventure 
As the flowers break out of the earth. 

Over the sweet-smelling mountain-passes 

The clouds lie brightly curled; 
The wild-flowers cling to the crags and swing 

With cataract-dews impearled; 
And the way, the way that you choose this day 

Is the way to the end of the world. 

It rolls from the golden long ago 
To the land that we ne'er shall find ; 

And it's uphill here, but it's downhill there, 
For the road is wise and kind, 

And all rough places and cheerless faces 
Will soon be left behind. 

Come, choose your road and away, away, 
We'll follow the gypsy sun; 



TEE CALL OF THE SPRING 181 

For it's soon, too soon to the end of the day, 

And the day is well begun; 
And the road rolls on through the heart of the 
May 

And there's never a May but one. 

There's a fir-wood here, and a dog-rose there, 

And a note of the mating dove; 
And a glimpse, maybe, of the warm blue sea, 

And the warm white clouds above: 
And warm to your breast in a tenderer nest 

Your sweetheart's little glove. 

There's not much better to win, my lad, 

There's not much better to win ! 
You have lived, you have loved, you have fought, 
you have proved 

The worth of folly and sin; 
So now come out of the City's rout, 

Come out of the dust and the din. 



182 THE CALL OF THE SPUING 

Come out, — a bundle and stick is all 

You'll need to carry along, 
If your heart can carry a kindly word, 

And your lips can carry a song; 
You may leave the lave to the keep o' the grave, 

If your lips can carry a song ! 

Come, choose your road and away, my lad, 

Come, choose your road and away! 
We'll out of the town by the road's bright crown, 

As it dips to the sapphire day ! 
All roads may meet at the world's end, 

But, hey for the heart of the May ! 
Come, choose your road and away, dear lad, 

Come choose your road and away. 



THE LIGHTS OF HOME 

i 
Pilot, how far from home ? — 

Not far, not far to-night, 

A flight of spray, a sea-bird's flight, 
A flight of tossing foam, 

And then the lights of home ! — 

ii 

And, yet again, how far? 

Seems you the way so brief ? 

Those lights beyond the roaring reef 
Were lights of moon and star, 

Far, far, none knows how far ! 

in 
Pilot, how far from home ? — 
The great stars pass away 
Before Him as a flight of spray, 
Moons as a flight of foam ! 

I see the lights of home. 
183 



CREDO 

i 
Thou that art throned so far above 

All earthly names, e'en those we deem 
Eternal, e'en that name of Love 

Which — as one speaketh in a dream — 
We whisper, ere the morning break 
And the hands yearn and the heart ache, 

ii 

Thou that reignest, whom of old 
Men sought to appease by praise or prayer; 

The spirit's little gifts of gold, 
The heart's faint frankincense and myrrh, 

Though we — the sons of deeper days — 

Can bring Thee neither prayer nor praise, 
184 



CREDO 185 

III 

We have not turned in doubt aside, 
Nor mocked with our ephemeral breath 

The little creeds that man's poor pride 
Still fashions in these gulfs of death, 

The little creeds that only prove 

Thou art so far, so far above, 

IV 

So far beyond all Space and Time, 

So infinitely far that none, 
Though by ten thousand heavens he climb 

Higher, shall yet be higher by one; 
So far that — whelmed with light — we dare, 
Father, to know that Thou art here. 



By ALFRED NOYES 

Poems 

With an Introduction by Hamilton W. Mabie 

Cloth , 1 2 mo, $ 1.25 net 

" Imagination, the capacity to perceive vividly and 
feel sincerely, and the gift of fit and beautiful expres- 
sion in verse-form — if these may be taken as the 
equipment of a poet, nearly all of this volume is 
poetry. And if to the sum of these be added the 
indescribable increment of charm which comes occa- 
sionally to the work of some poet, quite unearned by 
any of these catalogued qualities of his, you have a 
fair measure of Mr. Noyes at his best. . . . Two 
considerations render Mr. Noyes interesting above 
most poets : the wonderful degree in which the per- 
sonal charm illumines what he has already written, 
and the surprises which one feels may be in store in 
his future work. His feelings have already so much 
variety and so much apparent sincerity that it is im- 
possible to tell in what direction his genius will de- 
velop. In whatever style he writes, — the mystical, 
the historical-dramatic, the impassioned description 
of natural beauty, the ballad, the love lyric, — he has 
the peculiarity of seeming in each style to have found 
the truest expression of himself." — Louisville Courier- 
Journal. 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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Mr. ALFRED NOYES'S POEMS 

The Flower of Old Japan 

Contains also " Forest of Wild Thyme," of which the Argonaut 
says : " It is not only an exquisite piece of work, but it is a psychologi- 
cal analysis of the child-mind so daring and yet so convincing as to 
lift it to the plane where the masterpieces of literature dwell. It can 
be read with delight by a child of ten. It is put into the mouth of a 
child of about that age, but the adult must be strangely constituted 
who can remain indifferent to its haunting spell or who can resist the 
fascination which lies in its every page." 

"We are reminded both of Stevenson — to whom Mr. Noyes pays a 
glowing tribute — and Lewis Carroll; yet there is no imitation; Mr. 
Noyes has a distinct poetic style of his own. ... In a matter-of-fact 
age such verse as this is an oasis in a desert land." — Providence 
Journal. 

" It has seemed to us from the first that Noyes has been one of the 
most hope-inspiring figures in our latter-day poetry. He, almost alone, 
of the younger men seems to have the true singing voice, the gift of 
uttering in authentic lyric cry some fresh, unspoiled emotion." — Post, 

Mr. Richard Le Gallienne in the North American Review pointed 
out recently " their spontaneous power and freshness, their imaginative 
vision, their lyrical magic." He adds : "Mr. Noyes is surprisingly 
various. I have seldom read one book, particularly by so young a 
writer, in which so many different things are done, and all done so 
well. . . . But that for which one is most grateful to Mr. Noyes in his 
strong and brilliant treatment of all his rich material, is the gift by 
which, in my opinion, he stands alone among the younger poets of the 
day, his lyrical gift." 

Cloth, i2mo, $ 1.2 j net 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



Lyrical and Dramatic Poems 

By W. B. YEATS 

In two volumes; each, $1.75 net 

The two-volume edition of the Irish poet's works includes 
everything he has done in verse up to the present time. 
The first volume contains his lyrics ; the second includes 
all of his five dramas in verse : " The Countess Cathleen," 
"The Land of Heart's Desire," "The King's Threshold," 
"On Baile's Strand," and "The Shadowy Waters." 

William Butler Yeats stands among the few men to be 
reckoned with in modern poetry, especially of a dramatic 
character. The New York Sun, for example, refers to him 
as " an important factor in English literature," and con- 
tinues : — 

"'Cathleen ni Hoolihan' is a perfect piece of artistic 
work, poetic and wonderfully dramatic to read, and, we 
should imagine, far more dramatic in the acting. Maeter- 
linck has never done anything so true or effective as this 
short prose drama of Mr. Yeats's. There is not a super- 
fluous word in the play and no word that does not tell. It 
must be dangerous to represent it in Ireland, for it is an 
Irish Marseillaise. ... In ' The Hour Glass ' a noble and 
poetic idea is carried out effectively, while ' A Pot of Broth ' 
is merely a dramatized humorous anecdote. But ' Cathleen 
ni Hoolihan ' stirs the blood, and in itself establishes Mr. 
Yeats's reputation for good." 

The Neiu York Herald remarks : — 

" Mr. Yeats is probably the most important as well as the 
most widely known of the men concerned directly in the so- 
called Celtic renaissance. More than this, he stands among 
the few men to be reckoned with in modern poetry." 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



A History of English Poetry 

By W. J. Courthope, C.B., D.Litt., LL.D. 

Late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford 

Cloth, 8vo, $ 3.23 net per volume 

VOLUME I. The Middle Ages — Influence of the Ro- 
man Empire — The Encyclopaedic Education of the 
Church — The Feudal System. 

VOLUME II. The Renaissance and the Reformation — 
Influence of the Court and the Universities. 

VOLUME III. English Poetry in the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury — Decadent Influence of the Feudal Monarchy — 
Growth of the National Genius. 

VOLUME IV. Development and Decline of the Poetic 
Drama — Influence of the Court and the People. 

VOLUME V. The Constitutional Compromise of the 
Eighteenth Century — Effects of the Classical Renais- 
sance — Its Zenith and Decline — The Early Romantic 
Renaissance. 



" It is his privilege to have made a contribution of great 
value and signal importance to the history of English Litera- 
ture." — Pall Mall Gazette. 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



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